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UK Govt Warned: Don't Buy GPL
JPMH writes "ZDNet is reporting that a UK IT industry body backed by Microsoft, IBM, Intel, BAE Systems and other high-tech heavyweights has urged the UK government not to commission open-source software, and particularly not software covered by the General Public License. According to Intellect, which lobbies for about 1,000 UK IT companies, the requirement of open-source licences for software funded by the government could have a negative impact on competition for contracts, the quality of the resulting software and even the confidentiality of government departments. In particular, Intellect recommends that the government drop the GNU General Public License (GPL), the licence upon which the GNU/Linux operating system is based, from its list of acceptable default licences for government-funded software, and steer clear of the GPL generally."
they'd rather sell you their closed source buggy software at over-inflated prices. did you expect "industry leaders" to suggest otherwise?
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
The government is there to hand out taxpayer money to corporations.
It's so obvious.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
when your competion give away their software (and a good lot of free help too) is it fair that these firms should go out of buisness (the 1000 lobbying), i thought captitalism was supposed to work where the cheapest/most efficient solution wins , those that can't play , don't.
interesting times indeed
"Hi, we don't like having to compete with these guys. Could you please help us destroy our competition? If you do this, competition between the existing installations will improve! Really!"
From the list above, you can see that some of the most popular open-source technologies are not GPL. "Recommending against the GPL" does not mean "Recommending against open source."
Just something to keep in mind...
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
I would even go as far as to suspect that IBM's Linux services division would be upset at this.
From IBM's own mouth, they make over 80% of their revenues on custom integrations and support, which means that GPL software is a good choice from their perspective. Proprietary software wouldn't make them much more money.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
I have a feeling the UK's loyal friends within the Commonwealth will have a different opinion.
..."
The Commonwealth looks like it's verging towards a common strategy.
"The OEE and the DTI are considering establishing open-source licence terms as the default for government-funded software"
This sounds like it's swinging the pendulum even further than South African plans.
"When the Government decides to develop software using a restrictive licensing base, such as the GNU GPL, (it) should be aware that this would prevent it from deriving commercial gain
Which would be bad because we all know how much of our software we buy from the British government.
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
Yeah, it's a bitch when a company can't slap a widget onto government funded software and then sell it back. You can see how the GPL might drive bid prices, aka government costs, down. As for quality, it's hard to see how someone can go wrong with GPL'd software.
GPL-lovers are very quick to cry for censure of any company suspected of violating the license.
Hey, that's the way copyright works. Big dumb companies set it up so they can screw you and me. Too bad when it gets used in a way they did not expect. Various programmers are quick to cry foul when they see work they wanted to stay free and are giving away, used by some big dumb company in an abusive manner. You don't think those same big dumb companies hesitate to set their well funded leagal department on individual programmers if they catch a wiff of anything they might lay claim to? Just look at SCO trying to extort the entire world of Unix. Nothing like that can ever come out of free software. Get back in your hole, troll.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
One of the factors highlighted in the ZDNet report is that of commercialisation. The position paper states that using the GPL would remove the option for the government to commercialise and profit from its work.
Call me old fashioned (and having said that I know I'm going to get at least one post that says "You're old fashioned"), but I thought governments were about internal order, external defense and maintenance of currency. Even being relatively liberal they should still only be concerned with generally looking after their citizens, not creating software.
After all, the British govt. providing the NHS really limits its ability to make money by running private hospitals. And if they didn't provide all those policemen they could make a fortune as a private security firm!
Cheers, Paul
The most sensible license for government contracts is no license at all. In other words, public domain.
There is no reason why publically funded IP should be copyrighted by a corporate entity.
I could understand BSD if it was only partially government funded, but for anything paid for by the taxpayers... PD is it.
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
I dunno, whasn't the profit-making scheme collecting money on support calls, installation fees, maintenance and such? (commonly labeled services)
just my 2 eurocents.
-- No Sig is a Good Sig
We need to view corporate relationships with a lot more cynicism than we currently do. The corporation views you as a resource, much like a desk or a computer monitor and will treat you as such. You can't hope they won't turn on you -- you have to expect them to. It's not a matter of "if," it's a matter of "when."
I'm sorry if I come across a bit strongly here, but it's something that very few people in the community actually understand. I think we all want to believe, in our hearts, that companies are made up of people and people are inherently good. Well I'm here to tell you that companies are made up of people and people inherently suck!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
They clearly either misunderstand the GPL or are blatantly lying. The GPL does not require you to disclose anything unless you distribute the modified version.
Thus the MI-5, CIA,CSIS, Interpol, or whatever can freely develop their own internal software under the GPL, and deploy it throughout their systems. The requirement to include source only applies if they distribute the product. I expect intelligence agencies don't normally distribute sensitive software outside the agency.
The GPL license COULD potential open a business up for a lawsuit
Yes. But how is that any different from any other software license?
Even closed source code is open to legal trouble. Perhaps even more so?
Shouldn't they be spent on something where the user is completely free to modify - either licensed BSD, or public domain?
In this case, the GPL is exactly the same as the BSD license.
It's only when the user stops being a user and starts being a distributer that the rules change. The GPL does not allow people to stand on the shoulders of giants without a return in contribution.
It's not users (or "beleaguered UK taxpayers") but profiteers that are under additional restriction.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Unlike BSD, the GPL carries a political message in it, and the government would have to back all the statements in GPL such as "All published software should be free software", the definition of "free", etc.
For what it's worth, I personally don't think all software should be free, but more importantly, I disagree with the idea of having to distribute a political message with my software.
All the OSS software I wrote has been released under BSD-like terms, and when I use software in my projects, I give preference to BSD-licensed ones.
grisha.org
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for slashdot.sig (129323052 bytes).
"It'll cost more in the end, you don't have the freedom to choose from a menu, plus no Happy Meals!"
Wah!
One of the previous arguments of proprietary vendors is that a governament shouldn't base their decisions on the license of the software, specifically, the GPL. Instead, governament should decide based on the functionalities of the software. For example, Microsoft Office's Word is the best word processor available, so the governament should buy it, since it meets the user's demands.
Now, the table have turned. These UK lobbists are asking to deny a software based on its license, and that it doesn't matter if it is the best tool for the job. As long as it is GPL, it is wrong.
Highly amusing. It only indicates that proprietary vendors are shooting everywhere hoping that one of their arguments convince someone. And that the "feature-rich" argument, after all, isn't working.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Devil's advocate: But the government is supposed to work for us. We are their employers in a perfect world.
Un-news
There may in some cases be a conflict between the Government's desire to maintain confidentiality and the requirement to disclose the software laid down by a restrictive licence, to the extent that the source code itself discloses attributes about the Government body that are regarded as confidential
Absolutely incorrect.
The GPL does not in any way cover internal distribution. This is not the same as public distribution. Making modifications and keeping them within your company, but not releasing the source, is completely uncovered by the GPL.
In regards to software that the government funds, the government should NEVER fund proprietary software development (except for things which are meant to always be secret, like the US govt's program to predict how radar bounces off of curved surfaces). Public money should not be used to create private information, or proprietary programs, which the public then has to pay for again.
In regards to what software is acceptable for the government, this organization's concerns about the GPL are bogus, and anything they say should be ignored. Irrelevant of the truth, they are going to advocate the use of proprietary software. It benefits them.
The proper course of action is for the government to give strong consideration to FOSS, and if it decides against using FOSS, it should have to publish and explanation of it's decision to the public. In fact, any decisions on what software the government uses should be justified to the public, and the government should be required to consider FOSS, for the very frequent cost advantages of using it. The government has an obligation to tax-payers to consider what is likely to in most cases be a less costly solution.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
IBM is a huuuuuge comapny. Just because one tiny part of one division supports Linux, doesn't mean that the entire company runs on Linux/OSS software. In fact, the people that I know at IBM have never even *seen* Linux before. OSS is a new and very tiny part of IBM's business. They are by no means an OSS company. They're just ccovering all of their bases.
So why can't corporations adapt, and use govt code in the way that brings the most benefit to all of society?
They are not losing anything but the ability to fuck over the citizenry with proprietary lock in schemes and dodgy data formats. How the hell is that in the public interest?
There is a weird proposition here, that because a business says they would like govt to give them code they can lock up, they should get it. The point is that no corp would have that code without the govt forcing them to fund it via tax. Why, exactly, are they deserving of the right to take from the commons and not give back?
I certainly wouldn't want military guidance systems released
Wich doesn't exclude the usage of GPL'ed software. GPL only says that you should allow anyone that got binaries from you to get the source code as well. Meaning that your government actually get the code of the guidence systems. That government is then 'allowed' to share that code with whoever they choose, but they are not forced to do so in any way. So there is nothing in OSS that prevents anyone from keeping things secret...
Businesses are geared to think only in terms of how profitable a certain action can be, and are incorrectly projecting that necessity-for-profit onto others. Intellect appears to be trying to equate their perception of a reduced commercial value of GPL'd software to a reduced societal value of GPL'd software. And while the former is an unproven assertion at best, the latter is downright wrong.
Should we abandon the creation of roads where the cost of building a new highway exceeds the revenue of the resulting taxes? What about housing for the poor? Surely we're not "deriving commercial gain" out of those projects?
Seems to me this is yet another case where commercial organizations need to be reminded by the public that they exist only at the pleasure of the populace, and by their grace. When a commercial organization (or other entity) begins to promote it's own interests over the advancement of the society as a whole, that society is correct in recognising such an organization as hostile.
The thing about things we don't know is we often don't know we don't know them.
I don't think IBM or any of the other old-UNIX-gone-Linux vendors especially prefer Linux. They sell it because customers demand it.
If they had their druthers, they'd still be locking folks into AIX, OS/2, or other solutions they can control. There's a huge benefit to customers making purchasing decisions based on insurmountable need for more of your product, rather than price shopping whenever a cheap new commodity box might lighten a load.
They'd also be quite happy if the software wasn't getting faster instead of slower. It used to be a given that the new versions of your software with new features you need would run slower than the last version, mandating extra hardware upgrades.
What should I do??
You should improve your reading comprehension; there is no indication in this article that IBM endorses this action, or even knows about it. They just happen to be a member of the organization that does, one of over 1000 members.
Suppose I am a government funded researcher. To be precise, people and businesses in my country pay their taxes and the government awards me some of this money to fund a new software system. Suppose my system is useful for SMEs to quickly help them to communicate opportunities to do business. It doesn't matter what it does exactly; the key is that there is communication between different organizations and that this is facilitated by my government-funded project. If I GPL this software, everyone in the country gets to use the software. If you're so inclined, you could go into business to try to make money from the software; you could improve the interface, or make it easier to search for partnerships, or whatever. Of course, you must GPL your changes, but you might be the clear leaders in the installation and configuration of this SW, so you could make some money. In any case, whether you can make money or not, the taxpayers do not lose out.
Suppose now that the software is released into the public domain, or even under a BSD licence. Suppose further that half-a-dozen firms spot a market opportunity to improve this project and make a commercial product out of the system. This is fine in principle, but if one of those six firms is Microsoft, we have an immediate problem. MS could decide to integrate the system into MS Outlook; perhaps the system uses email to communicate opportunities. We still have no problem of course, because there are five other competitors, any of whom could come up with a better approach to improving the product. Perhaps some of them will flourish in organizations which do not use Outlook for whatever reason.
However, if MS wishes to, they can simply make a subtle change to the protocol used by their version of the software. Because MS Windows is universal, this new protocol becomes the de facto standard. Of course, even this wouldn't be a problem, so long as MS published their changes to the protocol.
Suppose however that MS declines to publish their changes to the protocol. Our five other competitors are pushed out, and whatever money there is to be made from the software will accrue to Microsoft. For all I know, MS are paying a huge amount of tax, and perhaps they should have the opportunity to make a killing like this. The problem is that all the other taxpayers get to pay twice; they funded the original software with their taxes. And now if they want to get the benefit from the money they "invested" before, they have to pay again, this time to Microsoft. Of course you could argue that MS might have made significant improvements, but I don't think that argument holds, because they wouldn't have to make any useful changes to effectively require taxpayers to pay again for what they have already funded. All Microsoft needs to do is to make some subtle and unimportant and secret change to the communication protocol and they've made an instant market for themselves (or, more accurately, they've damaged another market).
I think that this is the key problem with BSD and public domain licensing for taxpayer-funded software.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Shouldn't they be spent on something where the user is completely free to modify - either licensed BSD, or public domain?
Why should they? Your tax payer dollars pay for your city park, yet you aren't free to set up a business in your city park; in fact, what you can do in your city park is quite restricted. And the purpose of those rules is so that everybody can enjoy the city park.
It's quite analogous with the GPL: tax payer dollars pay for the software, and the GPL ensures that the software remains there to be enjoyed by everybody.
Likewise, the fact that tax payer dollars pay for software development doesn't mean that anybody should be able to use that software for whatever they please.
Keep in mind that the same kind of people who make this argument against the GPL now had not trouble making the argument a few years ago that governments should pay for software development in the private sector and then leave ownership of that software with the companies that developed it.
"But when development is done with everyone's dollars, it should be open for use by all."
Absolutely it should be open for use by all. GPL software is absolutely "open for use" by one and all. The GPL even states it has to be. So don't worry, your business can run linux, too.
I paid taxes to develop the original code, I should be allowed to do whatever the hell I want with it.
You can do whatever the hell you want with it, except prevent others from doing the same.
I guess it also really irks you that you can't set up a toll booth at the entrance to a public park, eh?
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