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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."
That which is free.
What should I do??
they'd rather sell you their closed source buggy software at over-inflated prices. did you expect "industry leaders" to suggest otherwise?
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
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.'"
On one hand, they do tons of work on GPL'ed software, now here they are against GPL code.
What gives??
Press any key to continue, any other key to quit.
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
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!
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
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
"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!"
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"
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...
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A study commissioned by the fox, today issued a strong warning against putting a lock on the henhouse. "Locks are dangerous things. They can pinch your fingers. They cause changes in behavior that are undesirable."
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
Number of mentions of the word innovations per page is roughtly equivalent to the probability that this report was funded and ghost written by Microsoft.
Lets see: 3 mentions in 4 pages. MS probabilty factor - 75%.
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
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.
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.
Just because you are a member of a group does not mean you always have to agree with the majority.
I know. I'm an American.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
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.
Yet another well-formed opinion from those who would save us from ourselves, our own prosperity and our own happiness as a society.
It just amazes me that there are still people who listen to these self-important, avaricious cry-babies who have somehow gotten it into their minds that profits from their current business models (without regard for their viability) are an inalienable right.
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
You're damn right its tax-payers' dollars we're talking about. Whenever the UK government buys software from Microsoft, IBM, Oracle etcetera, they are essentially converting British Pounds Sterling into US Dollars and sending them off to US-owned companies. At least with GPL software its less likely to be spent improving a foreign economy, as we have as much chance to compete here in the UK, what with having access to the source code of this non-proprietary software.
"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
At least the KFC kernel is very stable, having been dead for some years now...oh wait, that's colonel!
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
You can read the original Intellect's analysis in here.
The ZDNet article misinterprets many things Intellect suggest:
1. Intellect does not suggest OSS licenses are all bad. Only GNU GPL could be problematic for the Government uses (ZDNet's title is so misleading)
2. The "GPL not suitable for secretive government bodies" is also overblown. The Intellect just suggests that if the Government wants to maintain confidential codes, they can't do it under GPL.
All in all it's fair to recommend the Government not going for 1 type of development model/license by default. The only question I have on the Intellect's analysis is that they suggested that businesses can't get back value of their IP under GPL. As far as I understand, GPL does not require distributing their software free (as in beer), nor giving up the right of redistribution (so I can't distribute a piece of GPL software in which the copywrite holder does not grant me the redistribution rights.) In that sense, GPL won't hinder commercial interest in software development as suggested in Intellect's paper, and the whole analysis could falls apart. But I'm not sure I'm correct on the GPL, better have someone more familiar with GPL to point it out.
A sig is redundant.
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
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)