Evolution Bounty Stirs GPL Concerns

Moochman writes "The recent Desktop Integration Bounty (funded by Novell) will surely please people who want Evolution to be part of GNOME. But the Ximian Evolution copyright assignment has stirred up concerns in the community about whether contributors will be able to maintain their Free Software mores. Essentially, contributors to Evolution must give Novell copyright over any code they submit; then Novell is allowed to include this code in a proprietary product. Is this a smart business move, or a violation of the GPL?" Since all contributions are only at the request of the contributing coder, and considering that the copyright assignment form says that "Ximian agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, nonexclusive, royaltyfree and noncancelable rights to use the Works," and specifies that Novell/Ximian release the code under a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (such as the GPL), it seems to protect the contributors rather well.

Comments

So ...

[SpooForBrains]

will this garner anything useful, or will there just be three hundred different LJ/DJ/blogging connectors?

So..?

[iantri]

Plenty of other open-source programs require you to sign over the copyright, especially when the program is maintained by an organization (Apache? Mozilla? Xfree? I don't know, but I think at least one of those three requires this).

How is this any different? Because they are also going to sell a proprietary version? The developers will sign the rights over to Ximian, so how is this any different from dual-licensing like MySQLs? I mean, Ximian will own the code..

Re:So..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another big one is GNU.

Re:So..?

[gujo-odori]

Yes, the fact that they are going to sell a proprietary version is precisely what will make it different for some people (and MySQL would be different for those people, too).

A developer who writes code and releases it under the GPL and only under the GPL and wants it to remain that way would not be likely to assign the copyright to Novell.

If it were me, I would grant *them* a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to use the code under the GPL. Maybe I would even grant them that license to use it in a proprietary program as well, as long as it was in the GPLed one too.

But sign over my copyright and then have *them* give *me* a perpetual royalty-free license to use my own code? Umm, I don't think so. Not unless I work for Novell developing Evolution code, in which case they already own it and don't have to give me any license at all.

Re:So..?

[Wesley Felter]

You're right that this is not a new issue. It just keeps coming up. Some people are happy to assign their code as long as it will only be licensed as open source (e.g. FSF, ASF), and those people are whining about how they won't contribute to Evolution. I think Evolution can live without them.

Re:So..?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't different, it is exactly the same.

But you just cited the one reason why I would never contribute to MySQL. I am just not going to give an organisation certain rights to my work if that organisation is not going to give me equal rights to their work. I don't care about all the "they wrote 90% of the code so they should have more rights" arguments. So what if they wrote 90% of the code? They get a million times more revenue from it too.

I am sure they can do just fine without me, but it will indeed be without me.

Re:So..?

[ThePhilips]

Sorry - you are not right about MySQL. AFAIK MySQL maintains GPL & non-GPL versions separately.

If you will contribute code to GPL's MySQL - it will not appear in proprietary one. MySQL people might choose to re-implement it for proprietary MySQL - but GPLed code will be held GPLed. On opposite side, MySQL AB makes some parts of their proprietary code GPLed - they are trying to keep both versions as close to each other as possible.

XFree86. Again you not right. One submitting code keeps all copyrights and what's more with her own license. Debian people did analysis of XFree86 and found about 40 variations of BSD license. Sometimes very different licenses. XFree86 folks admitted to be absolutely lax on licensing/copyrighting. Code with is genuinely XFree86 - is rather modest part of whole XFree86 (think applications, fonts, extensions, drivers, scripts, configs, etc).

I cannot be sure about Mozilla and Apache Software Foundation (ASF). IIRC both of them are pretty strict on licensing and copyrighting. I'm absolutely sure that they very strict on licensing: if you have submitted code under one license - you will be asked if project will like to change the license. That was a precedent with Mozilla going from MPL/GPL/LGPL -> GPL/LGPL - they have e-mailed every contributor with request for her/his code being transfered under different license. Apache didn't have had problems like that - I believe they are more to engineering, than to licensing - so I expect them to require copyright transfer, so if license will turns out to have a problem - they can address problem without years of getting "yes" from every contributor.

Relicensing process with its recent example in Mozilla have older cases: BSD's one I have heard about. RMS (Stallman of FSF/GNU) successfully argued to BSD folks that 4 clause BSD license (with acknowledgment clause) will only hurt in future - and since then BSD adopted 3-clauses BSD license, which is compatible with GPL.

Re:So..?

[jdray]

Or... ahem... "Evolution will continue without them."

Re:So..?

[BlackTyranny]

Does this signing over of the rights for copyright prevent the author from selling the code itself under the author's own terms? In other words, can they still dual license the code under GPL and another license themselves, or are they cut-off from doing that now?

Re:So..?

[0x0d0a]

Thank you.

All this is is Novell trying to institute an old-world, pre-GPL code-ownership model ... but without having to pay developers benefits or pricing.

I reckon that there are some people that will do this, but there are much better gigs. Some places will let you do contract work and GPL that work (if there's no competitive disadvantage) and give it away to others. In that case, you get paid well for the code *and* the world gets a GPL-licensed piece of software (not this DFSG-compliant-and-maybe-GPL-if-Novell-feels-like- it business).

I was actually going to do a bounty on Evolution this month -- wanted to see how it'd work out. Now I'm glad that I put it off from last month. Screw 'em. I've got more lucrative ways to earn money, and better projects to work on. When I want to write GPLed code, I'll write GPLed code and keep my copyright.

If Novell was innocent and just out to cover their asses WRT their closed source software, they could have done something like the NPL (which folks *still* didn't accept) where Netscape gets a license to use the software. Novell wants the bleeding *copyright* signed over.

Re:So..?

[Anonymous Coward]

Screw 'em. I've got more lucrative ways to earn money, and better projects to work on.

You were going to earn money by donating your code to a GPL program? Your the man, stick it to em!

Requiring copyright assignment is likely just company policy. It's far easier to require all code be copyrighted by the company than it is to keep track of all the copyright holders for the indvidual pieces of code they use.

For your information, GNU "wants the bleeding *copyright* signed over" as well. I guess GNU is also not *innocent* and is out to ruin your 'lucrative' cross licensed code fragment business?

Re:So..?

[JohnFluxx]

The gnu situation is different. You sign it over, and they will protect it. At any time you can ask for the copyright ownership back.

Re:So..?

[0x0d0a]

No. I don't use Evolution, but I thought it would be really cool to buy a coupla pizzas with money generated from open source coding, make a big deal out if it.

And aside from all the reasons why the FSF is more likely to be better justified in having the copyright, and aside from the fact that I've never submitted a line of code to a GNU project, the FSF controls the GPL anyway, so you *have* to trust them.

Re:So..?

[Anonymous Coward]

But the chances that GNU is going to release a non-free version is about the same changes as pigs begin to fly

Re:So..?

[jrumney]

At any time you can ask for the copyright ownership back.

No, you can't. In fact the Evolution copyright assignment is an exact copy (with only the names of the organizations changed) of the GNU copyright assignment. The difference is that the FSF is a non-profit organization set up for the express purpose of protecting the freedom of software, while Novell is a company set up for the purpose of returning a profit to its shareholders, so people are more likely to see something sinister in the more loosely worded clauses of the assignment. The intention of the clause in question in the original FSF assignment is to allow MySQL style dual licensing on a case by case basis, should it be advantageous to the aims of the FSF. This is clarified somewhere in the FSF docs, though the clause as worded does require you to put a lot of trust in the FSF not to stray from their current philosophy. In the case of Novell, the clause could conceivably be used to close the source at some date in future, with an enhanced commercial version being offered, similar to what happens with OpenOffice and Mozilla (both of which have licenses which allow third parties to commercially exploit enhanced versions, so it is something the developers know to expect).

Re:So..?

[marcello_dl]

From GNU page about the GPL

How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

one line to give the program's name and an idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author

...(license follows)...

That doesn't seem like surrendering your copyright to GNU...

If you were referring to the restrictions placed on the distribution of code you add to a GPL project, if you don't like them start your own project and license it the way you like, period.

Re:So..?

[Minna Kirai]

From GNU page about the GPL

Irrelevant. The topic is not GPL'ed projects, but projects controlled by GNU. You are confused because the GPL is today more famous than GNU which spawned it.

If you want to get a patch included into an actual GNU project, such as emacs or gcc, you must assign copyright to GNU. Otherwise they'll reject your patch (you're always free to fork, of course, but then don't get the benefit high-profile placement)

Re:So..?

[marcello_dl]

You are right, I misunderstood. Too much FUD spread about the GPL prompted me to reply that way, I think :)

Then, it doesn't make sense that the AC parent post cites GNU, anyway. The topic is about code for which one surrenders copyright that might end up 0wn3d by a corporation: one must be quite a paranoid to be concerned about such possibility when submitting stuff to GNU...

It's time to evolve GNOME...

[Sasha Slutsker]

Er, yeah, it is.

A no issue.

[saden1]

Developers are getting paid for their work. Essentially they are contract workers for Novell.

Re:A no issue.

[foidulus]

Yeah, but it would be better if developers were getting laid for their work. Then I don't think you would hear anyone complaining about the licensing scheme :P

Re:A no issue.

[Florian Weimer]

Yeah, but it would be better if developers were getting laid for their work.

If everything else fails, it shouldn't be a problem for a developer to get laid
off for his work.

Re:A no issue.

[darksaber]

So if they're getting laid for their work, they're complaining about license rights on the video produced?

Re:A no issue.

[mOdQuArK!]

Maybe a peer-to-peer "escort service" network could be established? It might be the only P2P application that geeks would be willing to pay a subscription for...

Re:A no issue.

[bytesmythe]

Yeah, but it would be better if developers were getting laid for their work.

I don't know if this is such a good idea, though, what with the viral nature of the GPL. You never know what you might download over a "pee-er to pee-er" connection.

As a regular user of Evolution

[AliasTheRoot]

This gives me an overwhelming feeling of "I don't give a crap"

I think myself, like the majority of people that use software could give a flying fsck about the license some software is using.

Gnu / BSD / X11 / Sell Grandmother into slavery - I don't care.

Evolution is a perfectly acceptable replacement for Outlook, so long as it continues being like that i'll use it. If some better software comes along that runs on my PC i'll switch.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[AntiOrganic]

Evolution is a perfectly acceptable replacement for Outlook, so long as it continues being like that i'll use it.

Software doesn't exist without developers. If enough developers get up-in-arms about the loss of copyright to their code to stop collaborating with Novell, or fork the project completely, there's going to be some conceivable difficulty keeping pace with Outlook.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[gujo-odori]

Perhaps that should be amended to read "the majority of people that use software on Win, Mac, and other non-free operating systems." Of them, it is certainly true that most of them don't give a flying fsck about the license, and a good number of them are quiet willing to use warez, from which we can reasonably assume they don't care about compliance with the license either.

Among Linux users (and BSD users as well, although Linux users tend to be more "excitable" on this point), however, there are a great many people who care a great deal about the license. I sometimes used proprietary software if there is no acceptable alternative under a free license, but like a lot of people who use Linux, I will often choose a GPled (or other free-licensed) product over a proprietary one even if the proprietary one is better. The Free one just has to be "good enough" and under active development so that it is improving. Put another way, many of us will accept software that is far rougher and in a developmental stage as long as it is FOSS. If it's proprietary, we're going to demand more. Partly because of licensing and partly because if I'm paying for it, I should be able to reasonably expect that I am not paying to be a beta tester. Some of my gripe with proprietary software is that I have often found that no matter what the marketing spin says, it's so rough that in fact I *have* just paid to be a beta tester. When I want to beta stuff, I will volunteer. I certainly won't pay for the "privilege."

So yes, actually, many people do indeed give a flying fsck about the license on the software they use.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[mcrbids]

I think myself, like the majority of people that use software could give a flying fsck about the license some software is using.

And so, I see a clear picture of a large, pink flamingo, with beautiful plumage, with its head in the sand.

I know, it's a myth - they really don't bury their heads in the sand, but that's not true of humans. People bury their heads in intellectual sand all the time.

Software licenses mirror politics in this respect. If anybody EVER begins to complain about the "damn gubmint" my first question is... "Did you vote?". If the answer is anything but "Of course" then nothing they say has any bearing on anything, and I'm very explicit about telling them so. I simply don't engage in verbal political discussions/debates with people who don't vote since they've already made it clear their voice doesn't matter.

So, people don't pay attention to the actions of our president, and don't think about what's going on, and then are screwed in the end.

And that's exactly what software licenses can do. Unix was very nearly killed by Microsoft because the Unix license encouraged forking and balkanization of an "open" product. They then were no longer interoperable, and development tanked. We nearly lost decades of valuable experience and capabilities!

Microsoft's licenses are even more restrictive... if you use your install CD on two computers, you are engaging in criminal behavior. Microsoft's licenses encourage interoperability (with other MS products) and it's the interoperability that people/developers bought.

GPL provides provisions to mitigate the encouragement to fork present in previous *nix licenses - and quite successfully. It's an acceptable balance between totally closed (the MS way) or totally open (the Unix way).

Given the choice between one extreme and the other, the right answer is almost always somewhere in the middle.

Ownership does matter. When you "Buy" software, you are buying it's functionality and a license to use it. Would you buy a CD Player if you could only use it under conditions you don't find acceptable? What if you bought a car that prohibited you from modifying it in any way, (including dice on the rear-view, or removing seats) and that prohibition was backed with the force of law?

Let's try this post with a different kind of product. What if you didn't "buy" a car, but rather just the right to use said car?

"I think myself, like the majority of people that use cars could give a flying fsck about the title of ownership some car is using."

Doesn't that sound a wee bit different?

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[AliasTheRoot]

Flamingos don't bury there head in the sand, it's Ostriches you are thinking about.

Whats complaining about the "damn gubmint" got to do with voting? Democracy is arguably a myth propogated to make people beleive they are in control of a country. The fact that in a succesful democracy, such as the UK only 30-40% of people bother to vote for the candidates presented, that have identical policies is sort of damning isn't it?

Btw, using unlicensed software isn't a criminal offence, it's a civil offence. There is a difference.

As wierd as it may seem, the vast majority of people don't see computing as some political statement - they are tools we use in our daily lives, just the same as our cars or kettles - if someone got all emotive and political about a kettle you'd think them insane.

The reason i'm not out protesting or championing computer license issues is exactly the same reason I don't protest against animal testing - in some abstract way i care about both of these things - but it's really not important to my life, and it won't be until people stop starving or killing each other.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[0x0d0a]

Gnu / BSD / X11 / Sell Grandmother into slavery - I don't care.

Ever use another popular email program named pine? You know why it's increasingly dead? Because it has a *bad license*. You ever hear people complaining about the problems with djbdns's license, or qmail's license?

Just because a license doesn't directly impact you at the moment doesn't mean that it won't in the future, or won't do so indirectly (and possibly just as significantly).

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[perlchild]

As far as I know, in Canada (and the US IIRC, but I'm sure it's that way in Canada, else we'd have provincial copyright laws and different punishment by province) copyright transgress is a criminal offense.
If the trend continues, countries like the UK, where the copyright law makes sense, will become even more of a minority, since almost every recent change to copyright law I've seen has been to reduce the burden on copyright owners(unless they were also creators) to actually get those rights protected.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[mcrbids]

Flamingos don't bury there head in the sand, it's Ostriches you are thinking about.

...and "offense" is not spelled "offence", and "I" should always be capitalized. (relevance...?)

Whats complaining about the "damn gubmint" got to do with voting?

Why should I listen to somebody complain about the actions of their government who has already made it clear they don't want their opinion to matter? Not only do I fail to see how you could see this connection, I fail to see how you could *not* make this connection.

Btw, using unlicensed software isn't a criminal offence, it's a civil offence.

Laws regarding the violation of copyright vary. What's true in the US is not true everywhere.

...in some abstract way i care about both of these things...

It's not abstract at all. I am a software developer, and I frequently use code/software/libraries that I've purchased or found for free on the 'net. Frequently, I cannot use GPL code in my software products due to licensing conflicts.

So, if you develop software (and there are LOTS of slashdotters in my camp) licenses can be very, very important.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

true enough.. I'll take it a step further. I think the GPL is too restrictive and not free enough, so I prefer a BSD, LGPL, or Apache license over it.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[Dog-Cow]

In the US, voting in federal elections is pointless. As the electors are not bound (except via penalties and whatever their state laws provide) to vote as you do, your vote truly does not matter. Electors follow the popular vote to avoid trouble with state laws, not to meet federal requirements. Add to that the fact that it makes no difference who the president is and you get a lot of voter apathy. I will not vote because my vote does not matter.

Re:As a regular user of Evolution

[AliasTheRoot]

and that is a scary but true indictment of modern democracy. someone that refuses to vote gains no less respect from me, precisely because the system of democracy is so heavily broken and so heavily skewed.

GPL Fanboys?

[Frosty Piss]

The recent Desktop Integration Bounty (funded by Novell) will surely please people who want Evolution to be part of GNOME. But the Ximian Evolution copyright assignment has stirred up concerns in the community about whether contributors will be able to maintain their Free Software mores.

Not everyone here or in the OSS "movement" is a GPL fanboy. So like the BSD lic.

The FSF asks people to sign over copyright also

[Anonymous Coward]

The Free Software Foundation also asks programmers to sign over the copyright of any code they contribute. Ditto with the OpenOffice people. This is a perfectly normal request; having code licensed under both the GPL and some other license is quite common (OpenOffice, etc.).

Nothing to see here, move along.

Re:The FSF asks people to sign over copyright also

[Anonymous Coward]

The FSF copyright assignment contract says that the FSF will always keep the software free however. The Novell one says that Novell has the right to release the software under a non-free license. That's a huge difference.

Personally I would only sign a copyright assignment when the copyright assignment says the software isn't allowed to be released under a non-free software.

Re:The FSF asks people to sign over copyright also

[NanoGator]

"Nothing to see here, move along."

Crap, I'm confused now. Who'm I supposed to aim my pitchfork at?

Re:The FSF asks people to sign over copyright also

[mabinogi]

It doesn't matter what the FSF _Say_ they will do with it.
The fact remains that once it's their copyright, it's their copyright. You no longer have any say over it, and they can do what the hell they like with it.

Of course, the FSF being the FSF means that it's highly unlikely that they would do anything non free with it - especially since they promised not to, but they still CAN if they want to.

Novell is just being honest.
Also, as noted elsewhere, this is not actually a change in policy - it's just a change in name. The policy was already there, but Ximian was the company named.

Re:The FSF asks people to sign over copyright also

[CarrionBird]

As long as you have the right to release it for free (GPL, BSD, whatever), why does it matter if Novell can realease it for pay?

They still have to compete with your free version.

I guess the main question would be: "Would it bother you if we (novell) started making money off this thing you gave us?" If the answer is yes, then this deal is not for you.

Not In Perpetuity

[foobsr]

That means that external contributions WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE UNDER A FREE LICENSE. It doesn't say "in perpetuity", which is interesting, and I'd have to ask a lawyer what that implies.

No one will believe it here. The system is working looking for exploits ... erm ... exploitation.

CC.

Re:Not In Perpetuity

[mechsoph]

IANAL, but once the release the code under a free license, I wouldn't think they could "unlicense" it. Dual licensing setups seem to be fairly common (MySQL, QT). Seems the only problem is what you run into with the BSD license of a proprietary fork running over the free version. You'll still always have the free version though.

Re:Not In Perpetuity

[foobsr]

Other positions have been "vented":

------
On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 22:06 +0000, Carlos Morgado wrote: > So Rui is sort-of-right, he's just picking on the wrong point or believing > it's blidingly obvious the "or" between Works and Program makes it possible > for a non free version for Evo to be released as long as the original patch > remains unchanged.

It's not an or that's the problem. It's:

A. B.

Two sentences. Neither of them acceptable on a GPL project.

A ~= We'll make it available under a DFSG (or whatever the current wording is) license B ~= Besides that, we'll be able to, at our sole discretion, license it in another kind of license.

B is totally legal, after all, they _are_ the new copyright holders. However, you're giving them copyrights without anything in return, like the reason why the GPL exists: to keep software Free.

The collection of all the rights without any promise to maintain the terms of the GPL is for all pratical effects a circunvention of the GPL.

Such a copyright assignment contract shouldn't be admissible in any gnome module (much less so blindly defended by any GF board member).

Rui
------

From the "Evolution copyright assignment: Storm in a teacup" thread.

CC.

Re:Not In Perpetuity

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you release code under the GPL or the GPL liscence it automaticly becomes from for ever and ever.

Even if the original guys close all their FTP sites and forbids people from spreading the code, you will still have GPL code sitting on people's computers and in their backups that is still perfectly legal to use.

GPL is like a genie in the bottle. Once you let the code out in the wild, it'll stay there and there is nothing you can do about it. You can always put the stopper back in and stop more contributions from yourself but what is out there is out there and you have no control over it.

That's why, although distastefull, most programmers don't mind letting projects take over their copyrights to contributed code. As long as it's under a BSD or GPL type liscense they can the greater code with no strings attatched.

Remember:

Copyright != Liscense.

For instance part of the SCO debacle is that Novell sezs that they gave SCO a liscence to distribute the code and use the copyrighted terms, but did not transfer ownership over to them.

Slashdot food?

[dot-magnon]

As far as I can see it, this really is an internal debate. The complaints have been made, and resolutions are starting to take place, and THEN it ends up on Slashdot? Where's the BS filter gone? This is completely irrelevant for someone outside of the community to solve, and it's the community that will eventually resolve this. In addition, there are multiple discussions that have been mistaken for one here: The bounties are not directly involved with the copyright assignment debate at all.

Just leave it already. Seems that this passes pretty unseen amongst outsiders anyway.

Re:Slashdot food?

[elFarto the 2nd]

Where's the BS filter gone?

Didn't you hear? It was uninstalled so Taco could play Doom3.

Regards
elFarto

Re:Slashdot food?

[mqduck]

Yeesh! What a ridiculous thing to complain about!

I apologize if you dont like News For Nerds, but I happen to enjoy it.

Where the hell do all these Slashdot-bashing Slashdot addicts get off?

-----

GPL concerns?

[erroneus]

I don't pretend to know the GPL but I think I know the spirit of it pretty well.

I think that so long as the code remains free, I have no problem with an organization being enabled to use the code in their own commercial product. I think it would be ridiculous for them not to be able to gain benefit from the activity they sponsor.

I guess what they are trying to do is say "okay, anything you give is ours first and then we give it back... but we want to be able to use it in proprietary code but you still get to keep the code too..."

Re:GPL concerns?

[ruyon]

Well, I believe what GPL asks for is freedom (and code), not money per se.

Re:GPL concerns?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one real concern seems to be the possibility that, as Alan Cox pointed out, under this arrangement they could theoretically (after being taken over by Evil, of course) turn around and assert, say, a patent that would prevent it from being used under the GPL anymore. Then all the work of all these developers wouldn't legally be available anymore, even to the developers themselves, except through a version under different licensing.

There's also the possibility that they could decide to change to a GPL-incompatible Free Software license in the future, which wouldn't be as bad but still could cause a lot of grief.

Not very likely now, no, but then again the point to contracts is to spell out exactly what happens if folks go sour down the road. Hopefully the issue will be worked out satisfactorily by those concerned, and that's what seems to be occuring.

KDE Integration

[SpooForBrains]

Desktop Integration Bounty

Hopefully it will integrate with KDE a little better. Little things like sound would be nice - or being able to configure it without having to fire up Gnome Control Centre.

It's probably never going to happen, because Evolution is Gnome through and through, but it would be nice to be able to run it without all those Gnome libraries eating up memory. The performance hit since upgrading to SuSE 9.1 has been really noticeable. ... and before someone mentions KMail, I've tried it, I hate it, and it crashes. Which is annoying since I use all the other elements of Kontact.

Re:KDE Integration

[harvalen]

Maybe we need to start KDE project as answer to Evolution?

Let's call it Kreationism ;)

Re:KDE Integration

[abigor]

Kmail crashes on you? I am on several active mailing lists and get hundreds of emails a day, plus I regularly send stuff with huge attachments and coordinate stuff with Korganizer, etc. And I never get crashes. So maybe there's something weird about your KDE install...?

Overall, I like it way more than I like Evolution.

Re:KDE Integration

[nutshell42]

Sorry but there almost has to be something wrong with your installation. I have never seen a crash of a 3.x kmail. Almost every other program I use crashed in that time (one kernel panic, XFree crashes galore, even a tetex segfault once) only kmail always worked as it should.

Have you tried to remove your old configuration files before using a current version, if they're really old they sometimes do weird things

It is OK.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds fine by me.

If I write software and license it, I can license it to many partys under different terms.

I can GPL it AND license it to Novell. Why not?

Of course, if my work is a derivative of work owned by someone else, that's a different situation.

However, this particular situataion isn't derivative work.

Heck, many products that are later GPL'd fall under the "multiple licensees, multiple licenses" situation. This is no different.

Um... so what? The FSF does this too!

[benmhall]

So does my project.

As I mentioned on the linked page: "Also, the FSF makes all contributors attribute copyrights to the FSF. They do this for legal reasons. Mozilla did not, and when they decided to re-license, they had to contact every contributor. Because of this, we too require that any contributors attribute the copyrights to the jasabe project. Of course, you are still free to fork the project and keep your changes under your copyright, but we cannot accept your changes into the main jasabe tree."

Don't believe me? More info can be found on the FSF page as well as on their FAQ.

Not that it matters much for our project. It's only important if you have contributors. ;-)

MySQL Dual Licensing

[william_lorenz]

We were able to recently bring Jeremy Cole of MySQL in to talk with our group, and he explained that MySQL has a very similar dual-licensing methodology. This allows MySQL to sell their software commercially for those who want to include it in their products (I understand MySQL is used in telecom lots), and the companies that purchase it don't have to distribute the source with their products (which would be a hardship for them and possibly prevent them from using MySQL as a result). Additionally, MySQL AB is able to release the open version of MySQL for those who want to modify the source and tinker to their hearts contents. All contributors to the MySQL codebase have to sign-off on their code and the dual licensing, and this seems to be working well around the board, with a win-win for everyone. This way of doing things seems to support the company and a great database!

Re:MySQL Dual Licensing

[Alan Cox]

I think the big difference in the debate is that up until now the core Gnome apps haven't had such policies and people are worried about them getting everywhere.

From day one mysql and open office have had clear policies about how they work. Their communities are built of people who accepted that when they joined while the people who didnt went elsewhere

In the Gnome case it is making a change later on than the beginning, which makes it more divisive although the thread is probsbly larger and more acrimonious than its importance in the big picture actually is 8)

Re:MySQL Dual Licensing

[Gnulix]

All contributors to the MySQL codebase have to sign-off on their code and the dual licensing

I've seen earlier interviews with MySQL staff where they said that they haven't included any code that was made by sources outside of MySQL, nor do they intend to...

Anti-proprietary not anti-corporate

[polin8]

Its easy to be anti-Big.biz in the US, unless you are Big.biz

I may even be on the ani-B.b side myself, but I think its a mistake to mix the FOSS (anti-proprietary software) movements too closely with an anti-corporate mentality. Not as a question of right/wrong but as a question of tactics and achievable goals.

Open Source will win, the paradigm shift is happening, but open source will not change those nature of the Big.biz economy.

Free Software requires going further than open source, and I think its way too early to call whether free software will win. Free Software is a low hanging fruit after open source is mainstream, tying it to a general anti-corporate movement will make it more difficult.

It's really pretty simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoever writes the code gets to determine what type of copyright to use. If you don't like Novells copyright policy, don't give them any code. If you aren't a programmer and think this is wrong then you had better learn to write your own code.

That's slightly different

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these, such as apache or GNU, require the code signover for reasons of ease of legal bookkeeping, or as a way of absolutely ensuring they have the right to use the code.. GNU requires this because part of their function is to police GPL violations, but they can't effectively take legal action concerning code they don't own. People rarely have trouble with signing over their code copyright in such instances because the projects in question have no form of greed or self-interest in asking for the copyright.

This Evolution thing meanwhile you're being required to hand over the copyright so that Novell can turn around and sell it in a proprietary product. This is slightly different. Rather than being asked to hand over the copyright for the good of the community and users, you're being asked to hand over the copyright for the good of Novell.

This is actually exactly like MySQL and a lot of people do hesitate before contributing code to MySQL for exactly this same reason.

Re:That's slightly different

[Donny Smith]

Bruce Perens explains this problem here

"Red Hat has already proposed an answer to this problem, but I think it's the wrong answer. Their Fedora project is obviously intended to look like Debian. But unlike Debian, Fedora is an extremely unequal partnership. "Fedora" is where the community developers are supposed to build Red Hat's product, while the certifications and vendor endorsements are held back for the high-priced "Red Hat Enterprise Linux" brand. This is especially obvious in recent certification announcements: the Common Criteria certification will go to "Red Hat Enterprise Linux", not "Fedora". And of course the entire steering board of the Fedora project are Red Hat employees. Red Hat recently announced a second draft of the leadership structure for Fedora, in which they have eliminated voting, expressing the need to keep control in the hands of Red Hat's management. ...

How much would I advise a volunteer, community developer to contribute to Fedora? I think it makes sense to make Fedora packages for your own software - that way, you have some assurance that it will be packaged correctly. Beyond that, because of the vastly unequal partnership, I fear that a volunteer developer would be making himself an unpaid employee of Red Hat rather than a member of a real community. I guess that's OK if you think they'll hire you eventually. But I'd advise volunteer developers to concentrate their work on projects where the partnerships are demonstrably equal."

Re:That's slightly different

[0x0d0a]

I think it makes sense to make Fedora packages for your own software - that way, you have some assurance that it will be packaged correctly. Beyond that, because of the vastly unequal partnership, I fear that a volunteer developer would be making himself an unpaid employee of Red Hat rather than a member of a real community.

So make your own derivative distro from Fedora like Enterprise Edition. Red Hat won't stop you, and hasn't stopped a number of people that has done exactly that. Red Hat is probably the most Free-oriented major distro developer, aside from the Debian Project, of course.

Re:That's slightly different

[Donny Smith]

Yes, that can be done. It's just that, like the quoted text says, for a person not interested in any particular distribution but rather in the app they work on, it's probably simpler to contribute to Debian instead.
I think that was the idea - while both ways are fine, Debian's is truer to idea of free/OSS.

Re:That's slightly different

[drinkypoo]

At which point you are not developing for Fedora, and you have taken Bruce's advice. That was not very helpful...

Re:That's slightly different

[Anonymous Coward]

Bruce is just upset that Red Had didn't pay him. Damn near everything he has done in the past 3-4 years has been about making him money.

IOW, you pay him and he shuts up.

Re:That's slightly different

[Shivaji Maharaj]

Why?

Re:That's slightly different

[0x0d0a]

Thank you. :-)

Yes, exactly.

Re:That's slightly different

[jwr]

How do you know why FSF requires it and what it promises to do (or not do) with the code signed over?

I have tried to find out a number of times and failed. I haven't seen the charter of the FSF, either. For all I know, the FSF might be out there to just get lots of code signed over and then change the GPL into something evil. Or sell proprietary versions.

I think the FSF seriously underestimates the importance of being transparent.

GCC requirement

[KatTran]

This is requirement for all code contributions to GCC.

You have to assign the copyright to the FSF which most people will probably agree is more benevolent than Novell, but there is nothing new here and it is definitely not a violation of the GPL.

Re:GCC requirement

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference in the FSF case is that they specifically undertake not to relicence the code under terms other than "Free Software".

So in the FSF's case they can change the detail of the terms of the licence, to adapt to a changing legal environment, but cannot spin off closed source variants.

From my reading of Novell's position, this is not the case, at all.

Ergo its an end run round the GPL, and should be treated as such.

Re:GCC requirement

[Anonymous Coward]

On the contrary, the implication is that in general GPL code cannot be incorporated into Evolution.

The copyright holders of existing GPL'd code can contribute it to Evolution under whatever terms they like, (including transferring their copyright to Novell if it so pleases them) and thus allow Novell to release the derivative work under the GPL.

But for the general case where the GPL'd code is a derivative of the work of many authors, who retain the copyright on their contributions, the consent of all copyright holders is required, and the transfer of copyright cannot be under the GPL.

In other words Novell can garner improvements to code that is fundimentally their own by this legal manuver, but they loose the ability to draw freely from the GPL well.

They can of course incorporate GPL'd code in GPL'd releases of their product.

My read is this is a lawyer not quite thinking through the consiquences of the GPL, concerned to avoid dilution of the copyright Novell holds on its existing products. And missing that the cost to Novell of avoiding dependancy on "external" GPL software that can never become part of their propriatory product is probably untenable. Ergo defending their propriatory patch but loosing the major benifit of re-use of GPL'd software, or depending on parts of the non Novell controlled GPL'd software pool and not having a viable propriatory product in the long term, in which case the copyright assignment is moot.

Well, uh

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the idea here is we are discussing some people who are saying they aren't going to contribute code because of this.

BSD license

[n0dez]

I think that in this case (and in many others) the BSDL fits better than the GPL.

Re:BSD license

[grumbel]

No, since the BSD license would give everybody the right to do whatever they want with the code, I doubt that is what Novell wants that.

As it stands now, only Novell can do what they want with the code, as they get the copyright, and everybody outside of Novell 'just' gets the GPLed version and can't thus reuse the code in a proprietary product as Novell can.

Re:BSD license

[Anonymous Coward]

As it stands now, only Novell can do what they want with the code, as they get the copyright, and everybody outside of Novell 'just' gets the GPLed version and can't thus reuse the code in a proprietary product as Novell can.

That's a kind of interesting comment -- "only Novell can do what they want". Being a GPL enthusiast, wouldn't you want *everyone* to have equal rights to the source code, not just the copyright holders? Really, if you're okay with someone being able to make a proprietary product from an open source project, the BSD license seems the more appropriate choice.

That being said, I do prefer the GPL to the BSD license because in most cases I would believe when situations like this do arise, the company that holds sole copyright ownership are still nice enough to have licensed the product under the GPL that they're likely to continue keeping as much available under the GPL as possible.

For example, Ximian was able to make the Connector a proprietary product because they had Evolution's copyrights. Did this affect most end users? I doubt it, because if you were in a situation where you would want to use Ximian Connector, you could probably get a check signer to pay off for it.

On the other hand, there are companies like Transgaming which requires similarly of code contributions, yet recently they've moved more and more away from actually supporting the community projects.

In conclusion, yes, a company that requires you to give your copyrights to them for any code contributions does deserve your attention, but it's hardly worthwhile (at least in this case) to reach for your tinfoil.

Re:BSD license

[grumbel]

Depends heavily on who the actuall work does. If the programming is in large part fundet by Novell then I think its just fair that they get the copyright to make a little money with proprietary software, thats at least how Ghostscript works as far as I know.

When on the other side the community drives the projects and then some third party who might have in the ancient past be involved in the project gets all the copyright, than that would of course be fundamentally wrong and it would be time to no longer assign copyright to them.

Anyway, I think the biggest problem with the copyright assignment is the actually assignment itself, not the cause of it. Since the assignment itself makes it difficult for one-time contributors to actually contribute anything that is something more than a mimial patch, since that would involve paperwork, which can get quite complicated with different countries and differnt laws. As far as I remember that has at least for some GNU projects keep people from actually working more active on a project.

Makes sense...

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell is giving you money and you have to give them the copyright.

Whoever want pure GPL can fork Evolution....

Not according to the article.

[khasim]

From the article:
"Ximian agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, nonexclusive, royaltyfree and noncancelable rights to use the Works,"...

So. YOU write the code and then you give ALL THE RIGHTS to Novell.

Then Novell licenses YOUR CODE BACK TO YOU.

Re:Not according to the article.

[timmyf2371]

Sounds like a bad Soviet Russia joke...

Re:Not according to the article.

[0x0d0a]

So. YOU write the code and then you give ALL THE RIGHTS to Novell.

Then Novell licenses YOUR CODE BACK TO YOU.

This is the sort of thing that could only happen in Japan.

Licenses

[nebulus4]

Is this a smart business move, or a violation of the GPL?

While I can't say anything about this being a smart business move, I can take on the GPL part.

I don't think it violates GPL, because it's not certain that the "Works", as they chose to call it, will be released under GPL: "Ximian may at its sole discretion also offer the Works or a Program enhanced by the Works under other license terms." Note that you'd agree all copyrights to be transferred to Ximian and therefor it would be their decision to choose the license. I also don't think GPL prohibits the code to be used in commercial programs as long as they freely disribute the source. If they indeed release "Works" under the GPL then calling it proprietary code would be kind of doll, as they won't exclusively own it. Well, if I understand GPL correctly... It might be a good idea to consult with your lawer.

I think it's a good thing

[metalac]

It's a damn good thing to have these bounty hunts. It really involves a lot of people but at the same time it repays the people who have worked so hard to get some of the things done.

As far as the licences goes, does it matter? I mean if i wrote something got $1000 for it and decided it was worth selling my code, I'd have no problem with it. It seems that there are people out there who would like you to have a choice on what to do with the code as long as you let everyone see and use your code as they please. Not a lot of choice there, right? In my opinion it all comes down to the developer, if he wants to do something let him. As far as I'm concerned those devs got paid for by Novell for whatever they did, so at least Novell should be able to use some of that code elswhere also.

Let's say Novell comes out with Evolution and Evolution PRO. Regular version is Open Source, the Pro version is $100. If I as a dev submited some code that found it's way in both versions I'd have no problem with it since there is a free version that uses my code anyways. If i submited a code that found it's way only in Pro then I'd have a problem with it. Basically what I'm getting at is that the $100 Novell charges you for pro is probably not due to my code, but some other code that Novell developed not under GPL but under some propiatery license or something.

Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[LibrePensador]

This is not a legal issue but a moral one. The GPL is intended to create an ecosystem of free software and to discourage the creation of proprietary code, because proprietary code makes it illegal for me to help my neighbor.

What Novell is asking people to do is to sign over the copyright to their code so that they can produce both proprietary and GPL software based on that code.

Well, what happens when all the nice bells and whistles are only added to the proprietary version of evolution? This version becomes much more appealing. As a result, there is a demand for it and users begin to leave the GPL version in drones.

In the end, the bulk of the app's code is only released to lower maintenance costs, while the nice bells are proprietary and you can no longer share the software freely. In philosophical terms, Novell's decision is purely utalitarian, rather than based on the conviction that Free Sofware is the morally correct choice.

In essence, Novell's request for copyright respects the letter but violates the spirit of the GPL.

By signing your copyright over to Novell, you are saying that you do not care all that much about creating communities that share free software, because you are implicitly allowing your code to be contributed to a non-free application. The only way I would sign my code over is if Novell agrees to distribute ALL OF evolution under the GPL at PERPETUITY.

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[SpooForBrains]

Well, what happens when all the nice bells and whistles are only added to the proprietary version of evolution? This version becomes much more appealing. As a result, there is a demand for it and users begin to leave the GPL version in drones.

Yes, because everyone chooses to use StarOffice over OpenOffice and Crossover over Wine.

... pratt.

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[theantix]

Well, what happens when all the nice bells and whistles are only added to the proprietary version of evolution? This version becomes much more appealing. As a result, there is a demand for it and users begin to leave the GPL version in drones.

What happens? I can't remember exactly, but I think it has to do with cutlery. Spoon, knife, ???

This is not an issue with the GPL at all, this is an issue with theoretical people not contributing to Evolution because their patches could someday potentially be used in proprietary software. Because Evolution is licensed under the GPL there is zero concern about the software itself. The issue is not "does this violate the GPL", this issue is "will people contribute patches if they (a) have a problem with the licensing, or (B) have to go through the hassle of signing Novell's forms".

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so you have the situation where Novell / OpenOffice / [Insert more names here] owns all rights to an open source project.

What prevents them from just revoking the GPL license, going all proprietary and beginning to take money for it? Or even closing the source? I mean, they own all rights to it. Even if it is merely a "technicality".

Observation: It seems to me that in this case, free software, or even open source, is all based on the faith that the organization will act in the future as it does now. How do we know that? How do we secure it? Certainly not by handing over the copyrights, at least in my mind.

Does publishing a project under a GPL license at some point ensure that the project may be continued under GPL at the "point of departure"?

Or may the copyright holder (in this case Novell) decide that the GPL licensing terms no longer apply, and since they own the work completely, suddenly forbid *any* GPL versions at all? Even those that existed just before the "point of departure"?

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[civilizedINTENSITY]

In a nutshell: "The GPL is intended to create an ecosystem of free software and to discourage the creation of proprietary code, because proprietary code makes it illegal for me to help my neighbor."

So the real question is can we devise methods for proprietary code development, so that proprietary code can exist while not making it illegal for us to help our neighbor?

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[isolation]

Very true. We have a lot of customers of CrossOver but there are plenty of people that just use stock Wine for the Windows apps they need. By buying CrossOver or StarOffice you make it possible to insure the really nasty bugs get fixed that maybe someone working on FreeSoftware as a hobby does not want to mess with.

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[GileadGreene]

Or may the copyright holder (in this case Novell) decide that the GPL licensing terms no longer apply, and since they own the work completely, suddenly forbid *any* GPL versions at all? Even those that existed just before the "point of departure"?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Novell (or any other copyright owner for that matter) owns the copyright, which is what allows them to decide which license to release a product under. However, if you obtain a GPLed product from a copyright owner, they have granted you the rights laid out in the GPL, such as the right to freely redistribute, and the right to make modifications (provided said mods are released GPL as well). That license cannot be retroactively cancelled. All that Novell could do is refuse to release all future versions of Evo under the GPL. At which point the GPLed version of Evo would probably fork into a separate project. That's the beauty of GPLed code - once it's out there, it's out there. Doesn't matter if the company producing the code goes belly-up, or decides to stop providing updates, or whatever. The code is still there, and can still be worked with.

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[0x0d0a]

Because Evolution is licensed under the GPL there is zero concern about the software itself. The issue is not "does this violate the GPL", this issue is "will people contribute patches if they (a) have a problem with the licensing, or (B) have to go through the hassle of signing Novell's forms".

The license specifies DFSG-compliant, not GPLed. That's less innocent.

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[LibrePensador]

Well, there are very bad proprietary licenses and worse proprietary licenses, but all of them are bad in my book.

For instance, among the more reasonable ones, is I believe, although I could be mistaken, the one that ships with OS-X that allows you to install in up to five computers in your household.

But by definition, a proprietary license does not give you any rights to share or modify the code or re-release it and sell it.

Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL

[bacchusrx]

No, that's the definition of "proprietary."

Not an issue

[TravisWatkins]

Gallery requires this as well, it isn't a big deal.

No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

You've exposed an underlying fallacy of open source and the GPL: No direct link exists between source availability and innovation.

In this particular case, the open source community is using a widely loathed proprietary program -- Outlook -- as both model and yardstick for one of it's premier offerings, Evolution. Ditto OpenOffice.

If the GPL does foster the creation of new and innovative applications, why has the community not already brought forth an email client and an office client that are so convincingly innovative, useful and attractive that people will happily abandon the Outlook/MSOffice paradigms in order to adopt them?

Granted, source availability does spread innovative ideas once they occur in the mind of a given developer. But, it seems clear that a developer working in a closed, proprietary environment can be just as innovative as one working in an free and open environment. Financial reward can, in fact, be a wonderful spur to creativity.

It could be argued, as well, that the availability of code works against innovation because developers often use existing code as a model rather than strike out into new territory.

The GPL and open source represent many good things, but they are no better or no worse at fostering creativity than the proprietary model.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[treat]

In this particular case, the open source community is using a widely loathed proprietary program -- Outlook

Outlook is by far the best email client ever. And I say this as a free software bigot who hasn't run Windows at home since 3.0 and is the only person at a company of thousands without a Windows workstation at my desk. Outlook is the only Windows program I use.

I started using it becasue I had no choice but to use Outlook to be able to use all of the Exchange features. I'm not sure if Evolution has reached the point where it can replace Outlook when used with Exchange.

For years I used crappy email clients, Pine, Elm, Mutt, Netscape. None were any good. Outlook is the first email client I have used that was any good. But in addition to being -any- good, it is very good!

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[AntiOrganic]

The GPL and open source represent many good things, but they are no better or no worse at fostering creativity than the proprietary model.

Let's hear that same logic applied to software patents.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[civilizedINTENSITY]

We have two: emacs, and mutt. The rest is just (very attractive) eye candy. Sure, "sexy-good-looking" is a force to be reckoned with...but *good* cooking lasts forever! You want to learn to cook? Or you want to suck on a lollipop?

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

I didn't comment on the quality of Outlook. I said it is widely loathed, which is true, at least in the open source community.

However, are you arguing that the open source community can't do something better? That Outlook is, to all intents and purposes, the last email client?

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[bofkentucky]

If the GPL does foster the creation of new and innovative applications, why has the community not already brought forth an email client and an office client that are so convincingly innovative, useful and attractive that people will happily abandon the Outlook/MSOffice paradigms in order to adopt them?

OpenOffice and Evolution are fighting in product segments where Microsoft has had a virtual stranglehold for the last 10 years. Compatibility with them is absolutely necessary to drive a wedge for more F/OSS into the corporate (and home) environment. Mozilla (and other 3rd party browsers) have a decided advantage in that the bulk of their incompatabilities with IE are due to standards non-compliance in IE and the apps that depend on IE are less than 5 Years Old. At some point in the future, OpenOffice and Evolution will have to add more features or die in the inovation game, but first they have to be "feature complete" with their competiors. IIRC, excel didn't take off until it had a good Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility layer and Word had to render WordPerfect documents well prior to acceptance.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

If emacs and mutt are so good, why isn't everyone already using them?

It's a bit arrogant to argue that the only reason that the vast majority of users -- on any platform -- don't use eamcs or mutt is because they are attracted to eye candy. Most people, including myself, believe computers should make life easier. Software, therefore, is better when it offers more fnctionality combined with a flatter learning curve. That's where emacs, mutt and similar applications fall down: a lot of functionality combined with a very steep learning curve. Worse, once learned, that knowledge is essentially not transferrable elsewhere, which increases the demands on the user without providing an equivalent payoff.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[treat]

I didn't comment on the quality of Outlook. I said it is widely loathed, which is true, at least in the open source community.

Why would the open source community loathe an application which is clearly the best in its space?

However, are you arguing that the open source community can't do something better? That Outlook is, to all intents and purposes, the last email client?

No, just that it is by far the best email client, therefore it is not widely loathed.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

All true, but "fighting" in Microsoft's product segments is one agenda, and creating innovative software is another. Down the road, Evolution and OpenOffice may add their own unique features, but they have already cast their lot with the Microsoft model.

If someone's goal is to displace Microsoft products with F/OSS products, then mimicing MS software makes sense. If the goal, however, is to deliver innovative software, it doesn't make sense.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook is only loathed by open sourcers that have never used it and get their FUD second-hand from MCSEs who believe that scripting is a scary feature.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

The open source community appears to be full of people who loath anything or anyone connected with Microsoft. That's not entirely rational, but there you go.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[DiscoBobby]

If the GPL does foster the creation of new and innovative applications, why has the community not already brought forth an email client and an office client that are so convincingly innovative, useful and attractive that people will happily abandon the Outlook/MSOffice paradigms in order to adopt them?

They did. It's called "Thunderbird". Have you ever used Outlook as an IMAP client? It blows goats. Used the "spam filter" in Outlook 2003? It blows goats. Been owned by some email you only saw in the preview pane? Wow, that REALLY blows goats. And it's very common. Outlook is the de-facto standard thanks to predatory practices by Microsoft. TBird has to use that as a baseline to satisfy users, then kick Outlook's ass by exceeding their expectations. And it does.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[tonyr60]

"Outlook is by far the best email client ever."

A personal opinion, obviously.

From my perspective, it is not, but that depends what your criteria.

Is it the most secure, No.
Is it the easiest to use? Not according to a survey comparing it with Mozilla email in a 7000 seat organisation I know of
Is it the cheapest? No, it costs in licensing, training and support (It does not come FREE with Office, it is part of the package)
Does it run on many platforms?
Is it the most popular? Just, with about 55% of the business email client market, but it is interesting that many organisations licensed to use Office choose to not use Outlook.
Does it reliably do the job of composing, delivering, reading and managing email? Just, but my experience is that other email tools do it better.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[perlchild]

Granted, source availability does spread innovative ideas once they occur in the mind of a given developer

Isn't that choosing to quote the other end of the animal, because it suits your purpose?

Proprietary code permits the owner of the code to determine what features are included in a product, and that's deemed to be a detriment to creativity, since you don't have the code, you can't add them yourself.

Having to target the features of Outlook, because that's what the users of a product you want to replace expect, in no way limits you to those features(although it does limit you to implementing all of those features, and in some cases, that's not such a good idea, creeping featurism at work as it were).

How would the fact that people want to build a similar feature set to outlook prevent coders from adding extra features, since they have the source, or from removing unneeded features for that matter?

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[Anonymous Coward]

The pattern I have seen is that open source must first set a level of achievement to obtain. In the case of Evolution, it needs to be at the same level as Outlook. Once that level has been reached, innovation may begin.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[MattMan741]

IMHO, corel had the best solution to it, but as usual with the software market, the superior product is in the minority and the more expensive one reigns supreme.

in the last version of wordperfect i used (cant recall the version number) the interface was almost completely mutable. everything from menus to toolbars could be customized, and it came with schemes for various word processor programs. migrating from word 97 and need to get work done fast? a few clicks and you have the same toolbars, menus, and key bindings as word.

the biggest problem with office apps is training. if microsoft word ran in linux, the secratary wouldnt notice a difference, as her entire pc is just an "office bucket". the barrier in this kind of situation is huge for a highly innovative app that is superior to the market standard, as opposed to a clone of the existing dominant product (this is also why every major distro configures both kde and gnome to look as much like windows as possible.)

look at storage, winfs, and spotlight, and ask yourself who came up with the idea first? that would be seth with storage. how about nats dashboard? ive seen a few mentions of "implicit queries" in longhorn that sound suspiciously close to what nat came up with. then theres the BSD TCP stack that was aparently copied into windows. and hey, if money = innovation, why has apple done more in the last five years then microsoft in ten?

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[ncr53c8xx]

If emacs and mutt are so good, why isn't everyone already using them?

Why not evaluate each one program on its merits rather than comparing them to what other people are doing?

That's where emacs, mutt and similar applications fall down: a lot of functionality combined with a very steep learning curve.

Emacs is in fact, very easy to learn. And what will you do if your proprietary application of choice doesn't have a feature you want? Write to the author/company?

Worse, once learned, that knowledge is essentially not transferrable elsewhere, which increases the demands on the user without providing an equivalent payoff.

This is certainly not true of Emacs, as it has been ported to virtually every platform in existence. What about your proprietary app? How will you make it work in a new environment?

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

Adding new features to software that is mimicing another product is not terribly innovative. An innovative F/OSS email product, as I suggested, would be one that replaces that Outlook model with a new and better model.

All but a tiny minority of F/OSS users have both the skills and the desire to add features to existing products. Source availability inspires no more creativity among them than their use of a keyboard inspires them to create narrative art.

The core of my argument, though, is that the availability of code -- open or proprietary -- does not drive creativity. That comes from the imaginations of developers.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

The market does not necessarily reward innovation. Why? Because people usually won't buy what they think they don't need. That's the conundrum for F/OSS: Follow the existing models and risk being dismissed as a copycat wannabe, or deliver new, arguably better, but frighteningly unfamiliar products.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

What evidence do you have that emacs is easy to use? I assert that if you asked users who had never seen emacs to use it to create, save, and reopen a file, the vast majority would not be able to do that.

If the application I use -- open source or proprietary -- doesn't do what I want, I will use another application. Even for a skilled developer, writing code is the least efficient way to accomplish a task. The F/OSS community needs to understand that the ability to review and revise source code is utterly unimportant to the overwhelming majority of software users.

Yes, emacs has been widely ported. That fact alone testifies to a lack of innovation. Rather than coming up with something better, developers on those other platforms simply ported existing code.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[ncr53c8xx]

What evidence do you have that emacs is easy to use? I assert that if you asked users who had never seen emacs to use it to create, save, and reopen a file, the vast majority would not be able to do that.

You can assert whatever you like. However, I have introduced emacs to several users over the years, and many of them had never used anything other than MS Word. In almost all the cases, emacs became the primary editor of choice. If you look at the posts in gnu.emacs.help, you will see that most of them are from novice users and not geeks. In case you haven't used it, emacs under windows has the same file open dialog as any other application.

If the application I use -- open source or proprietary -- doesn't do what I want, I will use another application.

Your wants must be really narrow.

Even for a skilled developer, writing code is the least efficient way to accomplish a task. The F/OSS community needs to understand that the ability to review and revise source code is utterly unimportant to the overwhelming majority of software users.

Have you even used emacs? The way it works is like this--you write some function to do a particular task, and load it without leaving the editor. If you don't feel up to writing code, post in gnu.emacs.help using the built in gnus news reader, and someone will write it for you. People don't simply sit around doing edit compile cycles.

Yes, emacs has been widely ported. That fact alone testifies to a lack of innovation. Rather than coming up with something better, developers on those other platforms simply ported existing code.

Um ... what would that be? Since your post shows that you know almost nothing about emacs, that would be a rhetorical question. However, just to refute your claim, the reason emacs is ported so widely is because it has features no other program has, and because there is a huge demand for it.

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[reallocate]

I've been using computers for more than 20 years. Some of that time was spent coding. And, yes, I've used emacs on Unix, Linux and Windows. And, yes, I've dabbled in elisp a bit.

But, no, I've never felt a need to modify any F/OSS app to meet my needs and I know no one who has. Unless you write code for fun or for cash, it is simply easier to find another app to get the job done.

Of course, emacs is popular. But the fact that it is freely available on means that developers have that much less incentive to build something better. (No, I do not believe emacs is the crowning achievement of software engineering.)

Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation

[Compenguin]

> No, just that it is by far the best email client, therefore it is not widely loathed.

Outlook may or may not be a good groupware client but I have yet to find anything all that exciting about it's e-mail capabilities. Personally I don't like it and try to use more e-mail-centric apps.

You should care, it matters

[nurb432]

The licensing of the software does matter in general, as it can effect its availability to the masses, including yourself.

Get a license too far whacked, and it becomes effectively un-distributable, ( or commercial ) and effects everyone...

Does that happen in this case? I don't know, but the general concept of what is happen should be of concern to you as a user of 'free' software.

As a side note, I do agree though that it has all gotten out of hand with all the license/ip/patents/copyright issues, but all we have to blame is the lawyers, ( and ourselves for letting it get this far )

Too Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

They may not be getting laid but they're getting screwed

Then it shouldn't be part of Gnome

[Qwavel]

This is not a violation of the GPL.

But this is a reason to not make Evolution an integral part of Gnome.

There is nothing wrong with Novell doing this, but please don't compare it to situations where developers are asked to assign their code to a foundation. The wxWidgets, Mozilla, Gnome, Apache, Python, etc. foundations have mandates to help their users and contributors. Novell is a corporation, and it is ultimately only responsible to its shareholders.

Novell with Evolution and Sun with OpenOffice - these are like TrollTech with Qt. Better than closed source, but not as good as software which is guided by the interests of its users and developers.

Re:Then it shouldn't be part of Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

But this is a reason to not make Evolution an integral part of Gnome.

Sorry, but that is complete and utter bullshit.

So what if Novell holds the copyrights? What difference does that make with the typical scenario of a private individual holding the copyrights? As long as it is made available to the GNOME project under a suitable Free Software license, what difference does it make who holds the copyright?

Re:Then it shouldn't be part of Gnome

[JohnFluxx]

Because developers can't contribute to it without assigning copyright over to novell.

Re:Then it shouldn't be part of Gnome

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't contribute to GCC without assigning copyright over to the FSF... what's your point? It can't be simply that having to assign copyrights is an issue that will prevent people from contributing.

Granted Novell and the FSF have different reasons for requesting copyrights, it doesn't seem that's the reason this thread is proposing Evolution shouldn't be a Gnome component.
Debian has a proud

Well, lets see..

[T-Ranger]

I think the worst that could happen is that you get screwed out of a days work - work that you intended to be GPLd. Let me explain: Evolution is in a public CVS repository. I dont know if they have ever given non-staffers +w permissions, but lets say for the sake of argument, that even if they do, you are not one of them. Thus your code has to be review by a staffer. Lets say that that takes 24 hours.

As soon as your code is accepted and put into CVS, you can check it back out, under the GPL. The GPL is non-revokeable. Now having GPL rights to the code is not exactly the same as having ownership of it. Legally it is very different. Pragmaticly, as soon as it is in the public CVS your goal of submitting code the public good has happened. If you are very paranoid, only give them small chunks at a time, making sure that you can checkout your work before you give them more.

What you have lost is the right to take that part of Evolution and close it, sell it as closed code. Now, since you dont own the rights to the other 99% of Evolution, not much lost. Furthermore, Evolution is a fairly large and complex beast so unless you are working on it full time, I think it is unlikely that you could possibly contribute anything that would be usefull outside of Evolution. That is, your doing bugfixes, implementing minor features.

But what if your work is generic stuff that could be used outside Evolution? Do this: write it up as a library. Release the library under whatever license you want - retaining the ownership, and the right to sell it as closed code - and then only give Novell patches to Evolution such that it takes advantage of your library.

Re:Well, lets see..

[0x0d0a]

As soon as your code is accepted and put into CVS, you can check it back out, under the GPL.

Nope. Re-read the license. It says "DFSG compliant", not "GPLed". I dunno what licenses fit the DFSG, though.

Why not joint copyright?

[mmurphy000]

OpenOffice.org addressed this via a joint copyright assignment. In fact, IIRC, they started with a copyright assignment akin to Novell/Ximian's, but then eventually decided to do a joint copyright assignment in the interest of spurring more contributions.

IANAL, NDIPOOTV (Nor Do I Play One On TV), but a joint copyright assignment means that the original author retains all their original rights, and can license their code however they wish, but that the other signatory (in the case of Oo.org, Sun) also can license it how they choose.

Novell is paying for this code...

[ravi_n]

I really don't understand what people are unhappy about. Novell is offering to pay people to add certain features to Evolution and Gnome. In return for that payment, Novell wants to own the copyright of the resulting code (so they can also use it in their proprietary products), but they promise to also make sure the code is released under a free license (not unreasonable since they are making the offer to a community of free software developers). If you don't like those terms, feel free to not send your code to Novell and not collect any bounty. If other people do like those terms, that is their business.

Re:Novell is paying for this code...

[0x0d0a]

The worst possible light you can put on this is that Ximian is forking Evolution to be non-GPL. That does nothing to the current coebase. If people are interested in maintaining Evolution, they're certainly free to produce their own "true, GPLed forever" fork. Look at XFree86 and xorg.

I think that people should be using mutt, anyway. :-)

Expect to see more of this...

[eamacnaghten]

Expect to see more of this dual licensing stratergy, at least for now.

You can already see this in OpenOffice.Org and in MySQL. I am also attempting this in my EDL Language Project. I do not think it is a bad thing and will in the long term enrich free/open software.

Dual Licensing is a very good intermediatory from a proprietary to a free software environment.

Follow The Money

[Anonymous Coward]

UserLinux == Perens == Consulting Fee$

Re:Follow The Money

[Donny Smith]

Gee, if he's an open source developer, how the hell is he supposed to make a living if not by providing support, consulting or something like that?

Re:Follow The Money

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like RedHat does? ....

no different than FSF

[noldrin]

This is often how the FSF works, the difference being one's for profit and the other is non profit. If you want to work on evolution and you don't want to fork over your copyright, then fork the program instead. But with so many email clients for Linux, I'm not overly worried.

Following in the footsteps of Sun Microsystems

[Anonymous Coward]

I will never contribute to OpenOffice or even take the time to familarize myself with the code. Those developers that contribute to the offical OpenOffice CVS must sign a Joint Copyright Assignment to Sun Microsystems, Inc. ("Sun") . In Jan. 2001, I voiced similar conserns about this practice as is now being voiced about Novell. Brian Behlendorf stated that assigning control to Sun (a company with a charter to do what is in the best interest of it's board) is similar to assigning control of copyright to the FSF (a non-profit org with a charter to do what is in the best interest of Free Software).

But despite the fact that I don't see the similarity, it didn't matter because as Brian Behlendorf said,

"Sun doesn't want to own this code. They want to hand the IP ownership off to an independent entity that can manage the IP assignments, be a non-profit so that liability can be checked, and be completely non-partisan towards any company, including Sun."

And now that three years have passed since Jan. 2001, that non-profit which I can assign joint assignment of copyright to... still does not exist. AFTER *3* (THREE) **YEARS**?!?! Hello! Brian Behlendorf? Is Sun in any rush to create this non-profit? Do you even have an ETA yet?

So... why is it we are so conserned with Novell now? I'm sure they will also assign copyright control over to a non-profit... about as quickly as Sun does for OpenOffice. Until then, we should all sign our hard work over to corps. via joint assignment agreements. After all, Sun/Novell are "similar" to the FSF. It isn't like corp. type people like Brian Behlendorf would ever lie. If they say that a non-profit will be formed soon to address any conserns then I'm sure that is what will happen.

Wait a second... it has been THREE YEARS?! I have been lied too! Anyone think it is time to tackle the Sun issue first? Maybe we should address where Sun is going with their "supposed" non-profit before attacking Novell for following the same model. At least from my expierence with Novell, they will be more responsive than taking three years. But from my expierence, I can't say the same for Sun.

And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[phulshof]

It's even worse: if you use that code in another program, you will be limited in how you can license that program. You're not the copyright owner of part of that program, so you cannot just assign a license to it without permission from the copyright owner. The GPL will work, sure, but if you want to use that code with some form of other license, you will be running into trouble.

In other words: Novell will be the only one able to use _your_ code in a program where they get to decide the license. You can use that code in a program of your own, but you can't provide your users with any rights not provided by the licenses used by Novell.

In other words: No way am I going to contribute to such a program!

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[miguel]

Before you make comments like this, please read
the copyright assignment form, which clearly
states that Novell agrees to grant back to the
developer all the rights over the code that they
contributed.

So you can effectively do whatever you want with
your code (unless it is a derivative works, in
which case, you are subject to the GPL anyways).

Miguel.

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[bobaferret]

So effectively you are granting Novell the ability to you your code in a propritery way, but the rest of the world see's it as GPL'd. It's basically a way for Novell to avoid inserting GPL'd code into their comercial apps without GPLing them? If that's the case I'd imagine that it is going bother a few developers. I'm no RMS by any strech of the imagination, and this bothers me. I don't think you will get quite the developer response that you've gotten in the past. On the flipside though, I guess I can see any response as better than what Novell has gotten in the past. For them any free code is good. This still seems a little goofy to put on a pure GNOME thing. If I don't take the cash, can I contribute without ever transferiing my copyright?

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[miguel]

The policy -like stated elsewhere- is one that
Ximian came up with, since the very first launch
of Evolution.

People are just mixing two different things,
because both were discussed this week on the
list.

There is no change in policy, just someone who
freaked out this week because of Sun's rumours,
the freakout evolving into this.

Miguel.

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[Curtman]

If this is THE Miguel, then its awesome to see you posting here on Slashdot.

Doesn't this situation open the door to someone causing big trouble for these projects? Like someone contributing code, having further contributions depend on that code, and then threatening to take their ball and go home if they don't get their way all the time? Or would the copyright get transfered back, and that code remain in Evolution under the GPL and get marked as to be replaced or some such thing?

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[bobaferret]

That's cool then. Just chaning the name from Ximian to Novell then.

What do you think of that SUN thing. Seems like a weird match. Except of the GNOME and Linux sides of it. Otherwise they seem like they just compete with each other (core overlap) far too much for it to really work.

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[phulshof]

I realise that I'm not an expert at these kind of contracts, but the fact that I receive back a right to USE the works, doesn't sound to me like I could give others a license to distribute this code freely or under any specific license I choose. If that is truly the case, then how about you change the license to 'developer hereby grants a license to use to Ximian'?

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[Breakfast Pants]

If this is THE Curtman, then I doubt anyone including THE Miguel knows you or will reply. But yes, it is THE Miguel.

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[Cyclops]

The only thing it made was stirr up the voice into wanting to be heard.

Re:And how can I use my 'works' afterwards?

[Cyclops]

which clearly states that Novell agrees to grant back to the developer all the rights over the code that they contributed.

If one reads the contract instead of believing you, they learn that is only true if all you want is to receive the software you yourself wrote as GPL'ed.

The projects uses the GPL as way to lure developers, and then it can turn GPL'ed software into proprietary.

How can they do it legally?

By acquiring all exclusive rights to the source code. That innocent contract you just signed...

MOD PARENT UP, please

[WindBourne]

ROFL; That was damn funny. I just may have to use that for one of my kde apps if it does not get used.

Asterisk does this

[abigor]

Digium, the company that maintains the source for the Asterisk PBX, makes you sign a disclaimer before you submit code. I had no problem with it when I submitted some stuff. The GPL'd code will always be there, even if Digium chooses to release the code under a proprietary license. People need to realise that open and closed code can coexist, even if they are the same codebase.

I believe MySql does this also.

Remember Cygnus?

[BLAG-blast]

Cygnus (now Redhat) did this for open source projects that they created. Cygwin, gdbtk/insight, Source-Navigator, etc.. all required patch submitters to sign over the the copyrights before the patch is accepted into the source base. This is all very normal.

Re:Um... so what? The FSF does this too!

[drinkypoo]

The question is who you trust, either Novell which has a history of making tightly controlled proprietary software, or the FSF which is potentially more trustworthy, at least in my opinion.

I wouldn't want to contribute my copyright because I wouldn't want the license to be changed without my permission, so I wouldn't contribute to something like this, but then I have little to offer it anyway so in this case it's a moot point.

You don't -have- to contribute...

[Booker]

... and they don't have to accept your code.

Nobody is restricting anyone's rights, I think. You're under no obligation to give them code, and they're under no obligation to take your code. IF you enter into this agreement, and especially with large sums of cash involved, it's simply two parties entering into an agreement. If you write the best thing in the world for Evolution, and want to hold onto your copyright, nobody will stop you. (Fork the project if you want, etc etc...)

THAT'S how Bill can Kill Linux

[Ridgelift]

It brings up an interesting tactic Microsoft can use to *really* kill Linux. Just support a whole tonne of Open Source projects for about 2 years, paying all sorts of bounties to programmers. At the same time, slip in lots of proprietary code and then sue everyone, or let their minions over at SCO perform more barratry. Then Bill can sit back and say "well we tried to help Open Source, but it obviously doesn't work".

See? The truly cynical among us can take any thread and twist it as a slam against Microsoft. Booyakasha!

Agree to not have assignment?

[Sits]

So will GNOME eventually mandate that its projects not be allowed to ask for copyright assignment? As many others have pointed out, it makes relicencing a pain...

MOD PARENT UP

[nutshell42]

blah blah lameness filter blah

Copyright assignment on Evolution.

[miguel]

Notice that copyright assignment to Evolution has
been the rule since its beginning, there is nothing
new.

So this is a three to four year old policy.

Miguel.

Re:Copyright assignment on Evolution.

[Cyclops]

Which should be dropped if Ximian/Novell want's to join the larger community that is GNOME's.

community contribution

[Anonymous Coward]

Precisely. The FSF are acting as custodians and maintainers of community property. Novell obviously have other motives, or they wouldn't need a separate license.

legal

[Anonymous Coward]

Transfer of all rights comprised in the copyright is allowed by US copyright act(except for moral rights, such as claim of authorship, those apply only to certain authors such as authors of a work of visual art). For more information refer to Section 201(b) and 201(d)(1). The copyright owner is allowed to issue another license besides GPL as stated in previous comments(see MySQL or trolltech).

I'm about fed up with people bashing Novell

[santiag0]

They are doing an amazingly good job of converting their company to an Open Source / Service model.

Bitching about companies making profit off of Open Source software is just feeding the negative stereotypes....

Ximian Connector and YAST are just two of their recent gifts. I could make this into a long rant, but I won't.

Just type Novell into google, and read about it.

Climbing off of soapbox now.

Ximian cannot compete...

[Cinquero]

...with other solutions. Use Thunderbird for eMail and KDE's KOrganizer.

Ever tried to download a few hundred msgs with the email client of Ximian? It looks like they are using an O(n^2) algorithm to do that! It took terribly long on a 2,1 GHz Athlon XP machine...

The overall impression was just bad. I won't come back to it. KDE+Mozilla rulez! Everything is working fine with that. I can even pull small updates to Thunderbird and Firefox (from 0.x to 0.x.3) directly from the source repository without having to download the whole binaries and then apply my own patches before compiling.

Bad business move... Not a GPL violation

[spiritraveller]

Is this a smart business move, or a violation of the GPL?

Uhm, how about neither.

GPL is just a license. If Novell owns the copyright, they can release the work under as many different licenses as they please.

But asking people to sign over their ownership to you, and later using it in a proprietary product defeats the purpose of the GPL (encouraging contributions) and is pretty horrible PR.

The only good thing about this is that they are telling people in advance that they will do it, instead of surprising them afterwards.

Crude and Unfunny

[Anonymous Coward]

That comment was crude and definitely not +5 funny. Mods please don't be so quick to mod up a joke because it says something about geeks getting sex, and don't be afraid to mod stuff like this down as overrated.

Re:Crude and Unfunny

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for telling other people how to think! And here I was forming my own opinions, but you come along and give me my own. Thank you so much!!!

Re:Crude and Unfunny

[cbiltcliffe]

I guess you missed the line when they were handing out the sense of humour, huh?
Come on...it was a joke. Don't be so !#%^ easily offended, get the stick out of your ass, and laugh, for shit's sake!

Re:Crude and Unfunny

[TeraCo]

if you think that is bad, wait until I come up with a joke that inclues ALL ANAL FUCKING.

Now, the question is.. will I get modded down for saying all anal fucking, or will I get modded up for tweaking the nose of some slashdotter with a retarded sense of what is right. [I mean retarded in the literal sense]

Re:Crude and Unfunny

[Anonymous Coward]

I can think for myself, thank you.

And for someone who would impose his own opinion over that of others, you sure have a lot of nerve not even giving us as much as a pen name.

I won't even bother logging in for the likes of you.

Yawn.

[NotZed]

Come on guys, this is OLD news. Ximian did this years ago, and nothing's changed except the name.

It hasn't been a real problem with any of the few contributions we've had to the codebase; i think maybe one or two guys got upset about it. It's been more of a hinderance to us, limiting what extenal projects we can utilise for some of the chunkier features. Bigger deterrants to potential contributors is the rapid development pace, limited documentation, the size of the codebase, and our anally retarded quality requirements for patches.

Some of the extensions people want to do aren't useful to the general community and would impact on the user experience for everyone else, or they had under-developed GUI interfaces which we couldn't include in the main product, or they were just poor code. In reality we're lucky if we've had 5% of the code from non-company contributors, and that is probably being generous. So much for Free Software. Often it's quicker and easier to write it ourselves than try to get someone's patch up to speed, unfortunately; but thats a non-technical and non-legal issue.

In 2.2 we'll have an extension mechanism that will let anyone write extensions and release them separate to the main codebase. This will entirely negate most of the issues here since the code will no longer have to be accepted into the main codebase to extend Evolution, and hence wont require assignment. We'll have something like the kernel tainting mechanism to enforce valid combinations (and also to let us know if it isn't our bug).

That word, fallacy, I don't think it means what...

[Anonymous Coward]

That word, fallacy, I don't think it means what you think it does. You being a member of the elite and exclusive class of holders of 4-year undergraduate degrees, and having taking an Introduction to Logic class, it is understandable that you vastly overestimate your own capacities (and importance, for that matter).

And my God! It's not just a "fallacy". Get this folks. It's an "underlying fallacy"! Someone get this man a medal!

If the GPL spurs innovation, then the GPL has spurred the creation of a surprisingly innovative email client. The GPL has not spurred the creation of a surprisingly innovative email client. QED, the GPL surs innovation, is false.

Gee big fella.

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to reject your initial premise.

And ya know, I think I'm going to need you to come in on Saturday for that.

-- Your Intellectual Overlords

Outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't he the guy that outsourced his company to India?

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2004/04/01/colla bnet/index_np.html

Re:Um... so what? The FSF does this too!

[xenocide2]

Can I trust both? Or is trust some sort of rare commodity that I should dispense with sparingly?

Why I disagree with Bruce

[JoeBuck]

Red Hat has a very good record of putting out everything they produce as free software; even the few exceptions to this they have generally fixed as time went on. Given their track record, I see no risk in contributing patches to them. Should they do something that they have never done in their entire corporate history and take a free program proprietary, the free software community can fork the program, starting from the last GPL release. But with Red Hat, all the movement has been in the other direction; they have repeatedly bought proprietary code and made it free.

Novell, on the other hand, was until recently a completely proprietary software company. It would seem more likely that they might be tempted to use contributed Evolution code in proprietary products. If you can't stand that idea, don't contribute to Evolution. But consider: if you found and fixed a bug in XFree86 (or Xorg) would you be willing to send it in along with an assignment? Remember, that code is non-copylefted, so you might become an unpaid employee of some proprietary company that uses the code. And if you do use Evolution, and you were motivated enough to fix an Evolution bug, why wouldn't you want to send it in? Would you want to create a fork, just to deny Novell the ability to use that patch in proprietary software? It would seem that unless you refuse to send patches to fix non-copylefted software either, you're being inconsistent. Even RMS advocates cooperating with non-copylefted free software projects and not trying to create GPL forks.

A hell of a lot of people have written free software that I use every day while on the Red Hat payroll. I'm fine with Red Hat making enough money to keep these folks working and fed. All things being equal, I'd prefer for the FSF to own the copyright over Red Hat, but I'm not particularly worried about the issue.

Re:Why I disagree with Bruce

[Tony-A]

There's also the situation where you have a product which is both proprietary and GPL. The equilibrium state is where the GPL stuff is playing with the cutting edge and the proprietary stuff is holding back awaiting developments. The situation looks a bit screwey, but consider that the people paying for the proprietary version not only want stability but want someone around who can and will fix any problems that arise. If the advanced GPL version kills most of the bugs before the code is also the proprietary version, so much the better for the paying customers. Hackers playing with the advanced GPL version get to play with and use the state of the art, are actually in a good position to get support because the stuff is fresh and new.

Now in the above, would you have any intention of accepting something which is strictly GPL and then supporting simultaneously both forks caused by that minor improvement? You could take existing MySQL code under the GPL and improve it. However you'd have to keep maintaining it and try to keep up with MySQL AB. If I did manage to come up with a significant improvement which I was dependent on (Why else would I have gone to the trouble?) after a bit of consideration, I think I would pay MySQL AB to take it. Something's topsy-turvy here.

Please explain how this is a problem.

[jbn-o]

I don't see how this is a problem or any different from anyone else building services around free software. I don't see how it is the free software community's problem that some businesspeople choose to pay for certification. Furthermore, packaging my free software program doesn't prevent others from packaging it as well (perhaps incorrectly or poorly; possibly their bad packages will be more popular than yours and you will just have to live with it hoping more people will install your improved packages instead). The way I figure it, by distributing free software at all you are contributing to any collection of free software anywhere and possibly helping someone or some organization build a certification program around it.

Perhaps this entire article arises from an "open source" mindset where business users' perceived problems are of chief importance? I'll remind readers of an informative essay on the differences between the two movements.

no form of greed or self-interest

[dfghjk]

No form of greed or self-interest? Surely you must be kidding! Selling a proprietary product is not the only form of greed / self-interest.

RMS and the GPL are certainly driven by self-interest---interest in maximizing the volume of software available to them in source form. RMS doesn't care that you have access to his source. He wants access to yours.

Re:no form of greed or self-interest

[chromatic]

RMS doesn't care that you have access to his source. He wants access to yours.

Strange, then, that RMS has released more source code than I have and probably more than you have.

Re:no form of greed or self-interest

[Asic Eng]

You are right that there are other forms of self-interest, however this here is not true:

RMS doesn't care that you have access to his source. He wants access to yours.

What he wants is that everybody should have access to the source. That includes him, but is not restricted to him. I'm not a big fan of RMS, but the way you describe his motives is a bit unfair.

Re:no form of greed or self-interest

[EJB]

You're right, although your sentiment about it is probably different than from most people.

Of course, RMS's is driven by his interests. However I can hardly think of another person who has single-mindedly pursued the same unchanging interest for so many years as this guy.

And it happens to be an interest that quite a few people share.

Now Novell, well, it's interest is primarily it's bottom line. If you own a lot of stock in Novell, I'm sure you wouldn't mind signing over lots of code without safeguards on how it's going to be used, since you have the same interest, but otherwise you may wonder if your interests are adequately protected by the copyright-assigment agreement.

(They may very well be - I haven't yet looked too deeply in that)

- Erwin

Re:no form of greed or self-interest

[dfghjk]

That depends on what is meant by "released". Released to whom? I'm certainly a productive programmer but none of it is "open source" in RMS terms (though some is public domain). Regardless, his productivity is unrelated to his motivation and making his source available in no way diminishes his desire to coerce others to do the same. The point is that RMS is just as motivated out of self-interest as others, it's just in his case money isn't the interest. That's easy for RMS considering that his way has always been paid for him.

Re:Um... so what? The FSF does this too!

[drinkypoo]

It's okay with me for you to trust whoever you want, I'm not your daddy (unless we're playing need for speed underground or mechwarrior 4, maybe.)

help your neighbor?

[dfghjk]

Proprietary code makes it illegal for me to help my neighbor? Come on, "proprietary code" isn't law. It doesn't make anything illegal.

Novell, as copyright holder can multi-license without violating the spirit of the GPL. Since they choose to do so, they require contributors be compatible with it in order to accept their contributions. If you believe that this goes against the spirit of the GPL then you recognize the GPL's desire to force it's idealogy on other people's work. That is, of course, fact. Anything that's more proprietary or more permissive than the GPL goes against the spirit of the GPL in that sense. Hell, RMS doesn't even like the LGPL.

I predict

[CAIMLAS]

I predict that Evolution will soon fork. Seems like a bit of corporate over-extension, to me: they want to have the cake and eat it too.

To me, this doesn't seem to mesh with the GPL, but I'm not intimately familiar with the GPL, so I can't make a definate say.

This practise is quite common

[Anonymous Coward]

Fyodor, the author of the popular nmap network scanner and black-hat hacker, retains copyright on any submissions, so that he can use the code in a product that sells for many tens of thousands of dollars.

While he does not prevent other people using the nmap code within the GPLs normal limits, he still makes sure he has copyright control so that he can do what he wants.

For more information, read here.

But that was to Ximian not Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

The copyright assignment that I made was to Ximian , a purely Free Software company - I was contributing to a product that was going to prove Free Software can be commerically viable.

But now it is Novell, who have been a proprietary company for so long - can a leopard change its spots ? - even if it buys out a free software company ?.

I have signed over a lot of code to be (C) FSF , but I think hell will freeze over before FSF is bought out along with my code.

The intent seems too obvious here (I see that Mono also has a similar agreement for the engine and the rest is X11 for the proprietary fork).

Re:But that was to Ximian not Novell

[jrumney]

The intent seems too obvious here

The intent is not obvious. As you yourself said, this same copyright assignment has been used for years by Ximian, and it is word for word (apart from the name of the organizations) from the FSF copyright assignment. So any suggestion that Novell have an intent to exploit this clause is baseless. That said, I think they need to either tighten up the wording or remove that clause completely to gain some trust from potential contributors.

MOD PARENT -1 (RTFM NOOB!)

[Anonymous Coward]

A little bit of text to keep the lameness filter happy.

The missing link is innovation and good product

[Kjella]

OSS has more than enough innovation, in my experience. In fact, I would say most products have too many innovators - people trying to shove their half-assed new feature into the product - after all it is what is cool to write, never mind that it is easy to get recognition.

It is all the other parts involved in making a good product like creating production quality code, QA, bug fixes, usability studies, HCI/GUIs, help system, wizards, tutorials, documentation and so on that are usually lacking. Much of the work is at times tedious and plain out boring - stuff you usually have to pay people to do, you know?

Of course, if what you need is some feature that isn't implemented yet, a bounty is a good idea. It's more of a "enabler" to allow someone to write something they'd already like to write though. I think it is one of the reasons dual-licenced code works well - there's some OSS developers with no "responsibility" that can innovate, and some commercial developers (who also innovate, of course) to do what "has" to be done.

Kjella

Public Domain?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

What if you release your code under the public domain, but then sign the copyright over to novell? Can they retroactivly retract the public domain code, or is it just out there for everyone to copy however they want?

But there is a twist

[Anonymous Coward]

I beleive in dual licensing, and can see the simularity in copyright assignment, given you know who you are assigning to (novell in this case). But what if Microsoft bought Novell and took the reins of Evolution!! That wouldnt be so pretty..

Sure one might answer that Microsoft would not be allowed too, thats debateable, but this situation extends to many copyright assignable type licenses to companies.

How 'Bout 'Help' Buttons Pointing Nowhere?

[reallocate]

>>"
It is all the other parts involved in making a good product like creating production quality code, QA, bug fixes, usability studies, HCI/GUIs, help system, wizards, tutorials, documentation and so on that are usually lacking. Much of the work is at times tedious and plain out boring - stuff you usually have to pay people to do, you know?"

Indeed. Although I'm a satisfied Linux user, I can't tell you how many times I've clicked on "Help" only to find that there isn't any. If Microsoft released a product with a help menu with nothing behind it, it would be instant fodder for F/OSS zealots everywhere. Yet, their side does it all the time.

In another example, last night I used Konquerer to run a search, from /, for "*.png". The app locked up after the file tally rolled past 15,000. I'm guessing an allocation problem, but why, exactly, do I need more than 15,000 png files on my machine?

Innovation vs implementation

[perlchild]

Of course you're right, since creativity is a DRIVING force in the first place. If anything drove it, it wouldn't be creativity.

But it's also a limited angle to look at it:

It's like saying having woodworking tools makes me want to build an innovative bench.

Of course having the tools doesn't make me be innovative bench, but with just my nails I won't be making any bench. That people may not have talent for woodworking doesn't mean that tools aren't useful to make benches. Just like giving a lot of tools to people doesn't make more innovative benches happen by magic.

Innovation is hard, especially when constrained by people's habits, like innovating in any field where retraining costs can be considered the most important cost of any solution.

Interestingly, what you've expressed about innovation happens even before the code gets written. Innovative ideas happen in people's minds, code has little to do with it. The implementation of those ideas in innovative ways happens in code. Having more code to work with is a tool, and lack of it can even be a barrier to entry in some circumstances.

Does that mean I can't design an innovative bench if I don't have a chisel? Of course not, the design tool is still the pencil. Code is an implementation tool, just like a chisel or a plank of wood.

Re:Innovation vs implementation

[reallocate]

Absolutely. Innovation happens before any code is written. F/OSS certainly provides tools to people who might not otherwise have that access. But, the ability to leverage existing code has a downside: it reduces the incentive, or need, to create something new.

The IT industry is a conservative industry. Everyone is dragging around great amounts of legacy code and hardware. Change is expensive; typically, it doesn't happen as long as hobbling along with the "old stuff" is cheaper than switching to the new. Even then, the new stuff will need to accommodate the biggest link in the legacy chain: people and their habits.

So, yes, you're correct: innovation is difficult. But, the IT world is one in which one successful program can effectively dominate the market. On the proprietary side, there's Windows, of course. And, on the F/OSS side, there's Apache and X Windows. Is it possible to build better tools to do the jobs that Windows, Apache and X Windows do? Sure. But don't hold your breath.

copyright assignment illegal in Germany

[Anonymous Coward]

Just want to note that in German 'Urheberrecht' you can never lose your rights to your own work, so copyright assignments, if they try to exclude the actual authors, are most likely easy to invalidate in courts. And of course IANAL.

Other future companies?

[danme]

I see this as a way for Novell to gain more control over the software and its distribution. Sure, the software is still under GPL and will (maybe) be forever. BUT, theres one company that may in the future use this software for commercial purposes, and that is Novell. And as good as this software is still available under GPL, this _is_ a way for Novell to gain money that will not be available for any other company. So, do you want to give your support to Novell more than, say to HP or IBM (now and in the future) by giving them your sign and contribution? And yes, I know the Ximian guys within Novell has written the most code in Evolution and that its now 'only' available under GPL - which brings another question; should a GPL:ed project need to give away its copyrights to sign an agreement or work closely with a GNU project (such as GNOME with Sun)?

KMail

[leonbrooks]

Use it, love it, and the only concession to Outlook is the toolbar thingy they added with Kontact.

OOo (well, StarOffice) was deliberately designed to look like MS-Office, not for the sake of slavish cloning, but to make it easy for MS-Office users to transition. And it worked. There are still significant structural differences, generally for the better. Forex, in ooWriter you have Format/Character, then Format/Paragraph, then Format/Page, one after another on the menu. In MS-Word, you have Format/Character, Format/Paragraph, and... File/Page-Setup? This also reflects an internal difference in how they view documents. Sections are less foundational to ooWriter than MS-Word, and frames work better in ooWriter (and it produces nicer HTML when used for that).

KOffice is a little differenter, but it also does some things righter, and it's having more tools added to it than OOo. It is definitely not an MS-Office clone, and it is also quite popular.

You also neglected to speak on FireFox and countless other FOSS tools which are unquestionably not clones.

Re:KMail

[reallocate]

You don't need to clone another product to adhere to the same model. E.g., Mozilla, Firefox, etc., are fine browsers. But, even IE must follow the model established by Mosaic and Netscape. A truely innovative design would impress people so much that they would willingly abandon their current browsers and learn to use the new one.

I don't consider adding menu entries to OOo to be innovative. It's feature-itis. As you said, the OOo team valued acceptance by Microsoft users more than creating innovative software.

You didn't read what I wrote

[leonbrooks]

The important point is not the changes to the menus, it's that this reflects underlying conceptual and structural differences in the programs. OOo was raised as a specific, planned exception to the trend established by so many other FOSS programs. Kopete, for example, looks nothing much like MSN Messenger, but it does the same job (and also AIM's job, ICQ's job and so on).

You also haven't spoken to the points I raised about KMail.

Re:You didn't read what I wrote

[reallocate]

OOo would not exist if MSOffice didn't exist. It is designed, literally, to offer a very familiar work-alike environment to MSOffice users. Kopete and the other IM apps would not exist if the proprietary IM apps had not inspired them.

No software can be truely innovative if it uses existing software as a model. The points you have raised do not meet by criteria for innovation.

I don't see MSN messenger integrating ICQ, AIM etc

[leonbrooks]

Innovating in the IM field would be naff-all use if there were nobody else to talk to. Nevertheless, I cite Jabber.

Now... get a life.