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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."
Considering that IBM sells solutions powered by Linux. Am I missing something critical here? Perhaps this was not a unilateral action by the member companies, but instead an action taken by whoever is nominally "in charge" of the consortium?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Wow!! So if I want to use the software for my own personal gain and charge to use my version, I can. Then I can get FREE software research. Yea!
Is there a sonyesque powerstuggle going on inside IBM that results in left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing?
fact is: opensource is changing the IT industry economics and IT providers should adapt or die ...
...
...
... (anyone in it 's sane mind really believes that OSS is inherently bad and insecure ? got tell that to NSA, NASA, ESA, IBM, the City of Munich or google ...)
as usual some people really don 't get it (not a big deal - dynossaurs got extint anyway) and will try all sorts of dirty tricks like this one
I hope as an european netizen and taxpayer that EC watch bodies look very wel at this kind of tricks
Other than that - lots of good publicity for OpenSource
Cheers from Portugal
It might seem strange at first. But consider this a body that IBM backs. It's not like they have a controlling vote. If this move is too drastic, they could pull out of the body, but that's unlikely. I think most of IBM's software that runs on GNU/Linux is commerce based, like Websphere. Gov't isn't going to load up on websphere. IBM is probably just as happy to sell the UK Gov't stuff running on AIX or Windows.
-t
http://unmoldable.com W:"No one of consequence" I:"I must know" W:"Get used to disappointment"
I don't believe a closed source license is a good one at all, but likewise I don't think the GPL is the best idea either. Either putting it directly into the public domain, or using a BSD style license is the best solution, IMHO.
NOTE: This is for discussions of software being *developed* with government dollars, not when bidding is going on to use existing software for a contract, which is a whole different issue. But when development is done with everyone's dollars, it should be open for use by all.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Sure, but doesn't it seem rather odd that they would be against just the GPL? For instance, they aren't against proprietary licenses (obviously, which are HIGHLY restrictive) and they aren't against public domain or BSD (which are not restrictive at all)...
But they are against the moderately restrictive GPL.. does that make any sense?
I.e., you can have 4-foot midgets on your basketball team, and 8-foot giants, but the 7-foot 10-inch guy isn't allowed....??????
This has "Microsoft vs. Linux" written all over it...
I,
Am in the unfortunate situation alluded to in the article referenced.
As a sole proprietor I've worked two years on a fairly sophisticated aviation simulation program that has usages in planning new airports and in airspace changes.
I would like to make my project GPLed.
Unfortunately, there are companies much more politically connected than I am that would absolutely love to take the code, go to the government official that they have in their hip pocket and sell it to them.
Sure, the stuff would have my name written all over it, but the government official would probably never ever see the code. All he would know is that some slick sales person sold him on the software and more importantly the big fat maintenance/upgrade contract that goes along with it.
That sort of thing is basically how it works in government contracting. Government guys have zero ethics and will screw you over in a heartbeat.
It's sort of like an ego trip for them. They know they have you (especially if you really want to sell them something) and they will jerk you around bigtime.
So yeah, if you're in a particularly giving mood then GPL is just fine. Just plan on not being able to put gas in your car for the rest of your life if you're gonna deal with government people.
Because there is always somebody who is going to make they government person more happy they you will, even though you might be the "expert".
Having said that, I have made my software's code available with fairly lax licensing terms.
The terms basically state that if you license the code and then try to sell anything based upon it then you owe me a piece of the pie.
If you want to use it for in-house purposes then you are free to use it.
If you don't like the terms then you can develop the code yourself.
Caution: Contents under pressure
This is about GNU licensed software, not about Linux. IBM has never expressed any interest in open source beyond Linux, Apache, and the developent tools it donated to Eclipse. IBM sells proprietary operating systems, proprietary database servers, proprietary Java appservers, and other proprietary software.
IBM makes more profit from the sale of this proprietary software than all of their hardware.
IBM has no interest in an organization mandating the use of open source software. If an organization did that, it would mean MySQL/SAPDB instead of DB2, and JBoss instead of WebSphere.
Just because a company endorses Linux in an effort to expand its market does not mean the company is an advocate of open source across the board.
Now the Industry might be spreading some lies around about how open source code is buggy and of lower quality than stuff done by the "professionals" but I think that's a load of crap. Even the worst open source projects I've looked at seem to be only as bad as the average professional code-base. Open source guys tend to code toward the features they need only, but if you paid them to implement features you need, I'm sure they wouldn't have a problem doing that.
As far as the license issue, if I were in charge of a government (or other) agency, I would demand access to the source code of the work I'd commissioned. I would even consider releasing that code to the world, if not under the GPL license at least under a BSD one. Big IT companies might fear that because if their code made it out into the world, they would have commit seppku from the embarassment of the code quality or having some wise-ass kid releasing a much-improved version.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I certainly wouldn't want military guidance systems released but I wouldn't mind at all if every country in the world used the same stuff to tabulate economic growth and calculated it the same way. That would be a tremendous international benefit and would allow for honest international comparison of systems.
Because some of what government does should be kept secret does not imply that all of what government does should be kept secret.
But what's absolutely foolish is that they seem to be saying that BSD style licenses are bad too and are only exceeded in their wicked ways by GPL licenses. What particular reason is there to avoid a BSD license which doesn't require more than a copyright notice at worst? Well, other than it'll reduce profits at the commercial software shops.
and anyone who reads Slashdot knows that GPL-lovers are very quick to cry for censure of any company suspected of violating the license.
/flamebait. It doesn't stop anyone from taking the feature, integrating it in a commercial program and selling it back to the government. Unless you have some plug-in structure where you could slap in the BSD code, you don't get to use that feature as part of the program. The government could end up paying to use its own code, which seems like a waste to me.
Unless you create software, you never have any quarrel with the GPL. If you do make software, you'd better be sure you have a valid licence to use that code because by default copyright law you have no rights whatsoever.
Stealing GPL'd code is the corporate version of copying MP3s. Damn easy, and very little chance of getting caught. The reason you see so much flak about the GPL licence is that OSS software relies solely on the licence, and not on the secrecy of the code. Imagine I'd like to steal (technically copyright infringement/fraud) a feature that both Windows and Linux has. Where do you think I'd steal it from?
You don't see any quarrel about the BSD licence because it doesn't really protect anything worth protecting
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
They're already way ahead of you. Check out this passage from the license agreement for the open source computational fluid dynamics software called "ISAAC" (can be found here):
NO SALE TO U.S. GOVERNMENT
11. The PROGRAM, and/or any modified version thereof, shall not, in any manner, be offered for sale to the U.S. Government, without the written consent of the U.S. Government. The U.S. Government shall not pay a second time for the PROGRAM or any enhanced/modified version therof. The PROGRAM may be used in contract with the U.S. Government, but no charge may be made for its use. If the PROGRAM is modified using or enhanced using U.S. Government funds, the Government will be provided the complete source code of that modified/enhanced version and the intellectual property rights of the resulting modification/enhancement shall be controlled by such funding agreement.
In other words, the government already paid for it once, and they'll be damned if they're gonna pay for it again. I'm quite sure that this passage was a requirement of their federal research grant.
As someone who warks for BAE I really don't like this.
This is very anti-compititive. This would preclude
the government from using GPL or from contributing to GPL
projects.
Write your representativies and your corporate PHB's
who are doing this crap....
British citizens.
Now is the time to write your MP. Write him a _polite_ letter (snail mail is best in this case), in which you explain to him that GPL is good, esp. for government funded software. Read the comments in this thread, to get some arguments.
The most important thing is that you stress that this is important to you. Important decisions win votes.
the pun is mightier than the sword
governments considering buying open source software is considered. Frequently people here say "right tool for the right job" and talk about open standards being more important than the software. What has surprised me is that so far I haven't encountered one of the most important arguments: The right choice for governments is not necessarily the best software for the lowest price. For companies that reasoning is the only sound one but for governments it's not since they need to take more things into consideration - such as jobs in their own country. Have you ever seen police cars in a country made by a non-domestic manufacturer if there is a domestic manufacturer? I simply don't understand why so many European governments are so happy to send money to Redmond instead of trying to increase employment in their country. Obviously MS Office is better than OpenOffice and whether the total cost of ownership of Windows is lower than that of Linux (for eg. government desktops) is debatable. Can you imagine what it would do for Linux if the German government decided that since there is a domestic supplier of operating systems (SuSE) that must be used even though compatibility with MS Office wouldn't be perfect and even though people would need re-training. And if the French did the same with Mandrake? Why can't governments (and others) see that with a little effort Linux can be considered just as generic an operating system as Windows - why, why, why? If they buy other domestic products simply because they're domestic why not apply the same logic to operating systems since with a little effort they can be just as generic as cars.
Karma. Moderation. Is my
I'm the lead developer of LISSARD, an open-source school administration system. I am having discussions with someone in the U.K. who is very interested in free software, and in particular, using LISSARD in several of the schools he represents.
As I understand it, some U.K. courts have recently ordered their current proprietary administrative system to open up their database backend, opening that market to competition. That's where LISSARD comes in. Anyway, no one (in those schools, at least) likes the idea of being tied to a single vendor, which is why the open-source model is much more attractive. (Don't like it? Hire someone to change it.)
Also, this person is actively trying to deploy open-source software wherever possible, with moderate amounts of success so far. The real obstacle, as far as he can tell, is that most people are of the "you get what you pay for" mindset. (To which I respond "I'll take your money
All in all, good times to be OSS.
"But the government is supposed to work for us. We are their employers in a perfect world."
Put it this way: the BSA just wrote a European law. Still think the government are working for us?
Read the pdf, what a hodge-podge of unsupported statements. Firstly it is written from the perspective of the "Sponsoring" software companies. As pointed out, it totally ignores the fact that 99% of Government funded in-house code is for internal use. Why? Perhaps because they have specailist needs. How many Defence Departments or Internal Revenue agencies does any nation have.
Suddenly the premise that commercial software houses "do so in order to supply the software on a repeating basis and thereby to generate licensing revenues that allow them to make a profit on their investment" becomes null and void.
Governments do create or sponsor code for distribution to end users or clients, particularly in Health and Internal Revenue. Much of this is distributed free in the interest of eGovernment and reducing costs to the taxpayer. The development platform here is dependant on what the client machines have (usually Win95/98) and they can code it in VB if they are stupid enough. A large segment of the economy is still run on clipper code.
"Such a proposal would inevitably act as a deterrent to commercial involvement in Government sponsored R&D software projects because they would have such a limited opportunity to exploit any commercial gain from any privately owned IPR.." So this reads like they expect to profit from Government funded R&D, I thought this was where stendards otfen arose from due to the long term investment and the free rider effect. Normally, when a company pays you to write code they own the IP and I fail to see why this should not be the case with the application of public money. This effect was again raised yesterday by Hans Reiser. US style Corporate Welfare is perhaps not that appealing to the rest of the world.
Some other points;
Lack of adequate competition in the bid process.....
What they are really saying is that "we want to be protected from competition". Especially from small independant development firms that may be able to deliver on a more cost effective manner and with much less overhead. That would be worse that government bodies buying the development tools and coding it themselves.
Software that would not include leading edge developments.......
Like corporates and Governments implementing JAVA and web services and not waiting for .NET
This doesn't mean "we have established products and would like you to help protect the monopoly positions we have created by lack of interoperability
Very basic software which would only provide minimally useful solutions.....
Ah yeah, like "Hello, Microsoft. We are thinking of standardising on WinServer2003 if you could add...".
Confidentiality issues....
Well dont release the code. And if you do, don't copy any privacy law protected personal data into it.
And finally "For the reasons discussed the setting of a default position for use of restrictive licences such as the GPL, brings with it some commercial disadvantages that may in some cases outweigh the benefits." Read any MS EULA.
I would be interested to see the role IBM really has in this as it smacks of biting the hand, Linux and JAVA seem to be a large factor in the slowing down in the death of the mainframe.
I hope I haven't taken any quotes out of context, but they really need to be speaking to someone like Richard Alston in Australia.
Stopping myself...Abort (core dumped)
This reminds me of those occasional commercials that the UFCW or Teamsters unions will do when urging a boycott of a particular independent non-union supermarket or two - buy ad time, say don't buy, and watch as their commercials had no effect.
This sig no verb.
All "GPL==restrictive", "BSD license=free" posts are real nonsense! Where are the arguments for that?
The GPL and FreeBSD licenses are restrictive to users in almost the same way. They can use software under both licences free (once they obtained it), make changes and let everyone copy it. Only difference is that the BSD license asks to leave the advertisement intact and the GPL to provide source code.
But then you are already on a developing level. The only difference between the licenses is on this level. This does not make one license more restrictive than the other, the restrictions are just different! The GPL say you give changes backs (restriction for the company further developing the source) and the BSD license restricts the developer (the developer can not develop further on his own source if a company patched a few lines proprietarily).
Anyway the government buys/gets a product and uses it, so the GPL does not restrict them.
However companies are restricted, so they don't want to deal with GPL (as in article), but developer are restriced with BSD license, so they (hopefully..) want to use the GPL.
Personally, I believe as a businessman, technician and tax payer that open source is better.
Companies can make plenty of money from support and enhancement to the client. Government can retain the source and/or give some modifications back to the community. And govenment gets many options on suppliers.
I recently heard of a company who had just the object code, and the contractor pissed off to the other side of the world with the source code. Also, many companies have maybe 2 or 3 people who can do parts of the system - open source creates more developers with mature experience in a product.
And what if you find a bug in Microsoft software. Can you get it fixed right away? Not necessarily. You have to hope that MS take it seriously enough to do it. With OSS your chances are much higher, or you can do it yourself.
You can charge for writting it.
Most software in use is special purpose.
It actually makes sense for a customer to want his program to be gpled, he is not dependant on the original supplier for later upgrades.
This has nothing to do with open source. I write special purpose software exclusively. My clients buy the source - they are not dependant on my company to make changes (although they can hire us to do so). GPLing it just means that our company can just take the source and give it away - in most all cases this is a bad thing because our clients to not want the competition to have what they just spent big bucks developing.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
However a simple copyight notice or note in some help files is different.
BSD is alot more friendly in this regard. MS for example rarely even mentions the university of california qoute. Linux does not either unless you view the source.
BSD is deffinetly more corporate friendly. This is why Apple chose that instead of Linux when designing MacOSX. Their lawyers rightfully were worried that the FSF might sue them for keeping Aqua and other apps closed that run on top of the os. After all its linked to the operating system right?
This is a fuzzy area that SCO and MS have been going after. We know this is probably BS but in Canada a lawsuit was won just for linking! Risk managment is important in any business decision. BSD is just less risky in this regards and is considered more safe.
The GPL was designed to make all software free. Go read about RMS viewpoints. He is quite radical. BSD is a more community and academic standard to benefit everyone.
http://saveie6.com/
there is no requirement to share your modifications to gpl code if you're not redistributing it outside your organization
True, but AFAIK, it's perfectly legal for one of the developers to take some of that code home. That can be a very bad thing.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The government, I'm sure, would love the taxpayers to pay twice. We already do this with prescription medications (huge taxpayer dollars towards research, then the companies get to patent their drug and make mucho $$$ on it.)
Besides, what corporate-sponsored government could resist pulling money out of the average Joe's wallet not just once, but twice?
Bollocks.
The government might well report to the monarch, but in name only.
It's the electorate who put the government where they are, and they are supposed to work for us.
You think countries like France, Russia, China and the USA have better forms of government, just because they had revolutions ?
And you're also forgetting a certain gentleman named Cromwell.
Not only that, the whole thing is a bogus statement anyway.
Surely, if the government can get free software, then the people selling software have to make their software that bit better. Surely it would be a good thing for the government to consider OSS because then any software that doesn't cut the mustard will get dropped. Only the strong will survive. Evolution for the betterment of mankind.
The problem is, the UK government throws away it's money. I should know to a degree, my Dad (who owns his own IT solutions company) tells me that government contracts are the grail because they pay so much and it hardly matters if you fail to complete anything (on time or at all).
Look at the NHS - a £6 billion budget for a nationwide system to unify hospitals. £6 billion!? The institution employs 250,000... even giving everybody a machine at £400 each you're talking little more than £100 million. Networking... decent servers and software... where the hell do they spend £6 billion? On outsourcing it to probably 13 or 14 different operators.
The government has been a long standing joke and if they listen to desparate reports like this (please don't take away our easy money) then it simply proves that those in charge either are clueless or have another agenda.
It's interesting how those UK institutes that do have a restricted budget (Universities, councils) turn to OSS and find it more than meets the bill (pun intented). How come Whitehall doesn't listen to them?
Free Gamer - Free games list and commentary
yeah but under the GPL if you aren't allowed to distribute it without additional restrictions then you have to refrain from distributing it at all - see clause 7.
if the law says you have to keep it secret then you have to keep it secret - but in that case you can't distribute it in a limited way (to people the law says you can share the secret with) and remain in compliance with the GPL.
That seems odd. I thought IBM was the great defender of the GPL. What with the IBM Linux servers, and SCOX vs IBM case, and all.
I'd be very surprised if this organization has 100% of it's members asking them to do this, since IBM aggressively markets Linux solutions.
Somebody in the media please ask IBM for a comment.