Businessweek Recommends License Switch for Linux

MadFarmAnimalz writes "BusinessWeek has an article about the perceived threat of patents to linux, citing the SCO case, the opening of OSRM, and the Munich situation as evidence for the veracity of their conclusion that Linux isn't safe. Their solution? Relicense to the BSD license or the Mozilla license. On a positive note, the article's author does link to RMS' article Why Software Should Not Have Owners; good to see Stallman being quoted and linked to in a publication Like BusinessWeek."

Comments

No protection

[msgmonkey]

I can't see how switching licenses will help.

The licenses mentioned (patent clauses in GPL acknoweldged) deal with copyright and not patents which although people easily confuse are completely different legal areas.

Re:No protection

[smootc-m]

Switching to a BSD license will just encourage code forking which is bad. We will just end up in another "Unix Wars" scenario with proprietary versions of GNU/Linux popping up with their own incompatible extensions.

The real beauty of the GPL is that it encourages collaboration and sharing with the side effect that forking is discouraged. GNU/Linux is becoming the commodity OS precisely because of the GPL.

Re:No protection

[Bruce Perens]

He's a tech reporter who hasn't investigated the situation much and wrote the first thing that occurred to him. He did a pretty big disservice.

Switching from the GPL to BSD or another license would actually reduce the protection. It doesn't provide any incentive to license the patents for all users. Who do you think is going to develop all of this software if only big companies are able to distribute it legally? We'd be back to proprietary software and proprietary licensing.

Bruce

Re:No protection

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

If MBA's had been involved in Linux from the beginning, there'd be nothing to discuss.
There'd be no Linux at all.

Same old story... Come late to the party, then know all about how it's done.

Re:No protection

[eric76]

I don't see that the GPL does anything at all to prevent code forking.

Say you wanted a different version of Linux that did something differently. So you make the changes, however much they are and you donate them back to Linux.

But the Linus doesn't have to accept those changes. Or he can pick and choose which portions he thinks are good.

But since you donated your modifications back, you are free to use those modifications to release your own version.

In a manner of speaking, there already is a fork of Linux. Except it's a fork that is built into the current release instead of a completely separate fork. I'm talking, of course, about SELinux from the NSA.

What switching to the BSD license would really encourage is everyone else, for example, Microsoft, to be free to use the code for their own commercial purposes.

By switching to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own closed and proprietary version of Linux. For example, they could use the Linux code to enhance Windows and make it able to run any and all Linux programs available.

Re:No protection

[Saiai Hakutyoutani]

I agree. However, the FSF licenses do have flaws. For instance, linking to a library such as libc or GTK+ requires you to advertise the libraries and the license in the binary executable. Making an exception for dynamic linking would remove that requirement, but the FSF does not exempt any type of linking. I believe a new license should be created with the simplicity of the BSD license, but some of the protection of GPL.

Re:No protection

[grumbel]

The GPL doesn't prevent forking, it just makes sure that code can be merged back and forth between the forks at all times, so that stuff like the WineX vs Wine scenario can never happen with the GPL.

Re:No protection

[aquabat]

I think the point the article is trying to make (although not explicitly) is that a BSD style license would allow big software companies to hide their use of open source software in their products.

Assuming the company is distributing its open source derived software, the GPL requires public disclosure of the original open source software and any derivations, which would give patent holders evidence of infringement.

The BSD license, however, lets the company distribute their product without acknowledging any open source content. They can keep all their code secret. This places a greater burden on the patent holder to prove that a patent is being infringed at all.

I think this is the "protection" the article refers to.

Re:No protection

[ArbitraryConstant]

Switching to a BSD license will just encourage code forking which is bad.

As opposed to what, picking a development model that forces distributions to fork? 2.6 is the active development kernel, and distributions are now responsible for putting together a stable kernel.

This will cause more situations similar to what Red Hat has done with their heavily customized 2.4 kernel. Distributions will have their own heavily patched kernels that can no longer be easily migrated to the current vanilla versions. There are several distributions with the resources to do this by themselves, and the smaller ones will probably band together to do it as well. If that's not a fork, it's the closest thing to it and will probably lead to a fork in the future.

It's not the BSD license that encourages forks. There were (are) two factors:

-Commerical forks can get specs on hardware that open source ones can't. Since they can't give the code of the driver back to the community, they must fork.

-The BSDs (not the license, but the OSes) are designed as complete operating systems, with a userspace and a kernel in one package. This encourages forking because it's less modular than Linux.

It's not the licenses that do it, it's the unique position the BSDs are in. There are BSD licensed projects which do not fork, such as Python, which uses a license similar to BSD. By similar, I mean it explicitly says you can fork, keep the code secret, and sell the results. Python hasn't forked because there's no motivation for people to do it.

Re:No protection

[Ruie]

GPL does help with code forking - it gives you the freedom to do with the fork as you please.

As opposed to buying forked software (say Mac OS X) and then having to wait for the developer to fix bugs in the portions of code that are binary only.

In other words, the help is not in prevention of forks, but rather in making it easy to merge them back.

Re:No protection

[oolon]

The point they miss (because they are looking back) is many corportate donors of software source in linux would never have done it if it was not GPL. As the GPL maintains a level playing field, if a competitor takes the code and uses it they have to give back (or rather forward). If Linux had been BSD all the donations could have just been torn out of linux and used in other things. I believe resulting in the donations not being made in the first place, do you think IBM would have dontated its filesystem if it thought Veritas could just take the good bits of the code?

James

Re:No protection

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear valued customer,

No, we like to get money from Microsoft so that we can take part of their agenda.

Regards,
Joe Goebels
PR BusinessWeek

Re:No protection

[znu]

But the fact that software is licensed under the GPL may in some cases prevent companies from using software at all, which could reduce contributions. For instance, look at what Apple has done with Safari. Apple has created a proprietary browser and a proprietary rendering framework for OS X. Because the KHTML rendering engine was released under the LGPL rather than the GPL, Apple could leverage all of that code in that proprietary software. And in return, Apple has made massive contributions to KHTML. If it had been impossible for Apple to use KHTML without open-sourcing everything, it's easily possible Apple would have looked elsewhere for a rendering engine, and KHTML would have lost out on all that new code.

Re:No protection

[Amiga Trombone]

What I meant was that if Linux switched to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own proprietary version of Linux. Under the BSD license, such a release would not have to be open at all.

I still don't see a problem. The original code would still be free. Just because Microsoft releases a proprietary version of a free OS doesn't mean anyone is obligated to use it. Anyway, that's essentially what Apple did with BSD, built a proprietary OS on top of an open source infrastructure. In the main, I'd say both Apple and BSD benefited from the arrangement. And if you don't like Apple's extensions, generic BSD is still available.

They already did that with the TCP stack from what I understand. They incorporated the BSD stack in their code and their use of it is not open at all.

So they did, and they were perfectly entitled to. So what damage accrued to BSD or TCP users as a consequence?

Re:No protection

[maximilln]

Just because Microsoft releases a proprietary version of a free OS doesn't mean anyone is obligated to use it

Market position and monopoly play a more important role here. Microsoft would happily take Linux and then patent all competing distros out of existence.

In the main, I'd say both Apple and BSD benefited from the arrangement

It's clear that Apple kept their head above water but I'm not so sure that BSD was affected one way or another. BSD won its free pass when AT&T was sent packing.

Re:No protection

[Anonymous Writer]

If MBA's had been involved in Linux from the beginning, there'd be nothing to discuss. There'd be no Linux at all.

Same old story with the suits. They like to pretentiously spew so much bullshit from their gullets, like they know what they're doing in this boardroom pissing contest, that someone needs to follow them around with a shovel. They're the same suckers that automatically write checks as pavlovian responses to software obfuscatedly described with catch phrases like "scalable", "robust", and "e-commerce", and think they know better about what software to implement than the IT personnel. Lay off a huge chunk of the workforce, prematurely quit when the company is worse off than when they got involved, yet still get that seven-digit golden hand job as part of their contract. I bet Businessweek thought Enron was a good idea.

Re:No protection

[schon]

I still don't see a problem.

Then you have blinders on.

The problem isn't that the original code is free, or isn't free, or that MS's version is or isn't free. The problem is that THERE IS A FORK THAT WILL NEVER BE ALLOWED TO MERGE BACK.

A major point of Free software is to reduce the amount of wheel reinvention. Everybody gets to see and use everybody else's code. BSD-to-commercial forks provide a major impediment to that.

So what damage accrued to BSD or TCP users as a consequence?

MS TCP-users were not able to take advantage of the advances to the BSD stack, and are now stuck with a crippled version. This is the whole point.

Re:No protection

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

That takes board members.

Believe me, none of these guys have a national allegiance worth mentioning. How do you think all these Corps are governed by Bermuda and Costa Rica, anyway? Of course, shareholders (you and me) are part of the problem, too. Gotta have a return on our own investments, and won't stand for anything that works towards the long-term economic health of the nation, if it affects dividends or short-term pricing.

Re:No protection

[femtoguy]

For the business types to understand the point, you have to use their language. IBM chose Linux over FreeBSD. They chose GPL over BSD license. So did Novell. So did HP. So did a lot of other companies. In fact I cannot think of a single large vendor who chose FreeBSD, OpenBSD or NetBSD over Linux, despite the fact that they offer a similar feature suite. (You may argue with the specifics of that, but to a business person, they are all operating systems, they all run on X86 hardware, use X11 as a windowing system, and on and on). Not one. The market has voted with its feet, and has said clearly that companies do not like BSD style licenses . If they believe that companies should chose BSD licenses, they might as well suggest that Detroit put big fins back on their cars, or that McDonalds only serve tofu burgers and rice cakes. I do not know why business people trust the markets so much in some cases, but not in others. When some big company choses FreeBSD over Linux, they can talk about license changes, but for now there are only two that work: GPL (and LGPL if you want to get picky) and proprietary.

Re:No protection

[HanzoSpam]

Then you've no objection to MS taking, say, Kerberos, adding proprietary closed-source info to it, incorporating it into the next OS, and by force of numbers causing it to become the 'standard' version, with all other Pre-existing versions becoming broken in the eyes of millions?..

For the umpteenth time, what stops them from re-implementing Kerberos as closed source software, and doing the same thing now? The GPL only prevents someone from using the actual code. It doesn't prevent anyone from re-implementing an idea as a closed source program. That's entirely outside of the scope of either GPL or BSD.

Re:No protection

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Linux doensn't have a UI, to speak of. It's a Freakin' kernel. ;-)

MBA's are not busu=iness experts. UI folks are engaged in a behavioral science, with blind-studies and metrics. MBA's saw the "Internet phenomenon", and with their "expertise" created the dot-com bubble.

In other news....

[rokzy]

Women should give up their personal rights to make it easier on people who want to rape them.

Less incentive to develop

[dukerobinson]

if this were to happen, which I find highly unlikely, for one thing there would be a fork straight away. It would be just like the Xorg and Xfree split. Also, under the bsd license commercial proprietary software can integrate the open-source work, so why would anyone slave away at developing linux, only to have their work immediately integrated into commercial applications, the original developers not to see a dime. There is all kinds of bsd code in windows, for example.

Re:Less incentive to develop

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought developing software wasn't about selling the software and making a dime of it?
btw, ask why *BSD developers "slave away" at developing these OSs.

Re:Less incentive to develop

[turnstyle]

"Also, under the bsd license commercial proprietary software can integrate the open-source work"

And the freeddom to use the code in closed commercial applications makes it *even more free* than restricting it to only other open source projets.

Re:Less incentive to develop

[rokzy]

no it doesn't. that's like saying being able to kill people increases your freedoms.

it may be true for a minority of people who want to kill, but it means that EVERYONE loses the "freedom" to feel secure against random deadly attack.

taking it further, the most free society is one with no laws whatsoever, but in such a society freedoms can be easily lost.

the GPL is like "Civilisation for Software" - it may mean you lose some freedoms, but in return the freedoms it gives are protected.

Re:Less incentive to develop

[stemcell]

"And the freeddom to use the code in closed commercial applications makes it *even more free* than restricting it to only other open source projets."

It's only "*even more free*" in the short term. As soon as some punk improves it and closes the source the whole thing becomes much less free.

Which I imagine would be particularly irritating if they took something you'd written, added a function that you really wanted but didn't have the time / ability to code, and then deprived you of the right to use their modifications of *your* work without paying them a fee.

Stem

Re:Less incentive to develop

[Trelane]

This isn't about Microsoft, although it could well be (they can't use GPLed code like they use BSD'ed code in Windows).

It's actually a very different, very critical point: if there were no GPL, Red Hat, Novell, and others could very well release their own binary-only kernels/utilities and the Linux world would fragment like the Unix world. It's the GPL that's holding the Linux community together.

For instance, say that SuSE gets 90% of the Linux "marketshare." They then start introducing changes in the kernel and standard software stack which other vendors (hardware/software) rely on, due to their market dominance (sound familiar?). However, we note that, in order to be Linux and use the Linux kernel/software stack, they must release the changes back to the world under the GPL. Thus, Red Hat, Gentoo, Debian, and others all can stay 100% compatible with SuSE despite SuSE setting the de facto Standard. If SuSE comes up with Licensing 6.0 and tries to coerce their users into it, the users have much less of a barrier to switching away to other Linux distros because of this compatibility! Thus SuSE's power is checked despite monopoly position.

Now, there is fragmentation in the Linux community due to different distros relying on different software, and having slightly different systems and configurations. This can be mitigated, however, by following the Linux Standard Base, and we must encourage our distros to follow the standard and work to develop the standard to prevent this fragmentation. It should be a fairly easy problem to fix, of a much different order than the problem with the binary unix compatibility fragmentation.

Re:Less incentive to develop

[kanly]

This whole thread seems based on the premise that you actually could, in some way, relicense Linux under the BSD license. This isn't as easy as you might think.

Relicensing checklist:

1. Go to Linus, and get him to release the portions of Linux that he owns under the new license.
2. Armed with his blessing, go to each person who's ever contributed code, and get them to sign on. Last time I looked, this was at least a few tens of thousands of coders. Some are deceased, so you will have to get permission from their heirs.
3. Ask the FSF to release glibc under the new license. Wear body armor.
4. Go through every userspace program you want. If it is GPL'd, either get the author to relicense, write a replacement, or do without. Good luck trying to even find all the authors, let alone get them on board.

It's widely considered that even Linus Himself could not push through a license change. No need to worry about a corporation doing it.

If you want something under the BSD license, you might want to use BSD.

All your software are belong to us!

[bap]

That's an article? People who want money for nothing demand a gift with no string attached? Their message to the authors of Linux: "All your software are belong to us!"

Re:All your software are belong to us!

[Bastian]

What the author is really asking for is for Linux to transition from this bizarro-world that many businesses are afraid of and can't understand to the nice simple regimented money-based world they are used to.

In this world, if you get something for free (as in beer), you should be able to do anything you want with it. They can't understand the idea of nonmonetary compensation. The idea of, "You can use it, but if you try to do anything else with it you have to let us use your version, too." comes across as some sort of wacky bait-and-switch. The whole thing gets broken into two parts:
1. It's yours. Take it.
2. No, wait, WE WANT YOUR SOUL! SOUUUULLLS! RARRRRRRRRR!
(Of courrse, it doesn't help that MySQL AB really does try to do the above.)

I'm sure it's frightening for lots of business folks. They don't like it when they can't pretend to understand what's going on.

Re:All your software are belong to us!

[bcrowell]

Ahhhhem:

1. I, for one, welcome our new BSD overlords!

• 1. BSD license
• 2. ???
• 3. Profit!

• In Soviet Russia, the user licenses you!

And of course:

1. BSD is dying!

But how would changing licenses help?

[OneDeeTenTee]

The issue with patents is that certain basic ways of accomplishing tasks can be restricted.

Changing licenses won't prevent the use of litigation to suppress open source tools which do the same things as commercial products.

Not even an article

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a commentary, AKA an opinion piece. Look, I can write an opinion piece, too.

Microsoft should switch to the GPL.

Hey, someone submit this to Slashdot. Here's an idea for the text. "Slashdot has an article suggesting Microsoft should switch to the GPL."

Re:Not even an article

[kasperd]

Microsoft should switch to the GPL.

Not the most likely thing to happen, but still a lot more likely than Linux switching to a BSD license. Don't forget that for Linux to switch license, every single contributor must agree. One person already said he wouldn't accept it. Neither will I. The code I have contributed so far is only a few lines, but I'm sure enough people will disagree with this suggestion, that if you remove all the code we have contributed, what remains will not be a working kernel.

Besides, I don't see how the license could have any influence on patent issues. No agreement between author and end user can remove your obligation towards a third party patent owner.

Why don't they mention FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any practical reasons they can't use FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD instead of Linux in situations where a BSD-style license is preferred over GPL?

Or is it simply because they've never heard of it due to lack of marketing?

No can do!

[tomhudson]

If it's GPL'd, then everything up to the license chance would still be GPL'd, and it would immediately fork into GPL'd and non-GPL'd.

Of course, then the BSD licensed stuff would be copied back into the GPL'd fork, as is allowed.

Result - A full-featured GPL'd version, and a non-GPL'd version without all the features that it can't include as it would be a violation of the GPL.

In other words, why bother? It ain't broke - don't try to "fix" it.

Logistics

[keiferb]

The logistics of a license switch are staggering, especially when you consider a project the size of the Linux kernel. IANAL, but wouldn't every contributor to a given project, no matter how far back as long as their code's still there, have to sign off and approve of the license change?

Sounds like a headache and a half to me.

idiot

[sPaKr]

This guy knows nothing of what he speaks. The open group owns the Unix trademark. SCO claims to own the source and rights, but thats disputed by Novell the previous owner.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[oolon]

But this is what people just don't get. Linux like all other GPL source is copyrighted, If the GPL licence agreement is proved to be invalid that does not mean suddenly linux and all other GPL code is now public domain. Linux would still be copyright and everyone who was not the copyright owner would not have a valid license to use it. Until issued with a new agreement from the copyright owner. This is one of the strenghs of the GPL, if your defeat it you can no longer play with the toys rather than being able to steal them.

James

Lamest.... article.... ever....

[gsfprez]

in light of IBM's use of the GPL to shutdown a major copyright infringer, SCO...

and in light that this author decided to publish an outdated article - he continues to talk about how IBM is being sued for copyright infringement, while the hunter is now the hunted in the SCO vs IBM case with IBM arguing (very well) for partial summary judgement that IBM is 100% in the clear on Linux while its SCO who is now clearly in violation of copyright law...

but mostly because his very first premise is utterly false - "How does software owned by everyone and by no one survive in a world where copyrights and patents shape the legal landscape?"..

this article is lame...

Dear Mr. Wildstrom.

The GPL has NOTHING to do with your precious IP or ownership of software. The GPL is ONLY about two simple things - distribution and use. Just like EVERY SINGLE OTHER software license.

It is obvious you do not understand this. I suggest you read the two latest court documents from IBM, who are doing two things you claim the GPL does not allow...

1. claiming ownership of their GPL licensed software and
2. are asking the courts to prevent a copyright infringer from reditributing their software without their permission.

The easiest way to understand how the GPL works and why it works is to read those court documents - because its heart is exactly what the GPL is about - controlled distribution of owned software by the copyright holder.

As my history teacher was fond of saying to the kids that wrote their papers the night before as they watched The A-Team - "please grasp the concept, then rewrite your paper".

Bad understanding of the GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the GPL is hardly a model of clarity, and few disputes involving it have gotten to court, so case law has done little to clarify its meaning.

The GPL is actually very clear - derivative works of a GPL licensed work must also be GPL, otherwise you have no license to redistribute. It hasn't gone to court because if you claim the GPL is invalid, and redistribute something, then you are guilty of copyright infringement.

"Some people argue that the GPL as a whole isn't even enforceable.... "

Thats correct, it isn't, since the GPL only grants you rights. How can you enforce a license has no restrictions but only grants users redistribution rights that they otherwise wouldn't have?! Copyright law, however, is enforceable.

Re:hail

[Anonymous Coward]

While I disagree with the article, I can't help but notice the author got one thing right: the GPL is less of a legal document in our eyes and more of a religion. Like all religions, we have to be careful about losing sight of our purpose because of "ancient traditions."

The GPL Ver. 2 is great and works today; but we always need to ask ourselves if it is ready for tomorrow. Maybe we'll need to migrate to a version 3, or maybe we'll need to migrate to BSD. The point of this article, IMHO, is that we need to keep questioning whether the GPL is still working for us.

(posting as AC to protect my karma)

Defeating the point of Linux

[raistphrk]

Relicensing to the BSD license would pretty much defeat the point of GNU/Linux. I definitely think Linus needs to do more to make sure the code he commits isn't proprietary, but switching licenses?

The logical complications of changing the license to BSD would be a nightmare. Individual committers could file suit against FSF, or whoever might "own" the newly licensed code, to get a court order for their code to be removed if it's not licensed under the GPL.

Of course, somebody else could just fork Linux under the GPL again.

Re:Leave me alone

[kfg]

So you stupid reporters and lawyers can as well stop argueing about license switches. . .

It doesn't work like that. I think it takes a silver bullet or something.

In any case the article evinces the same basic flaw in perception that we see over and over again, no matter how many times you explain it to them they will persist in thinking of Linux as a product.

Not to mention the fact that they rarely even know what the hell they're talking about, e.g. the statement that SCO acquired the UNIX trademark. When you see uninformed shit like that in an article you know that the article is, well, uninformed.

Move along, nothing to see here but media hack.

KFG

GPL affects patents issues

[jeanicinq]

Copyrights and patents are two different things.

If Linux is still not sold as commercial software, patents should not be an issue. Copyrights affect free and commercial software; however, patents only affect commercial software. Some business-people must have got their confusion when businesses like Red Hat, Debian, Yellow Dog, and more started to package Linux with commercial software and distributed it; it looked like commercial software. The GPL avoids patent issues, but that confusion makes it an issue. Some businesses want to find excuses that makes it an issue that their patents are valid in non-commercial software.

Re:GPL affects patents issues

[Bruce Perens]

however, patents only affect commercial software.

Sorry, but this is not the case. In the U.S., patents even effect use. Use is clearly given by the law as one of the acts for which the patent holder can bring suit. You are liable for patent infringement by software that you write and use privately in your own home.

Yes, it's a broken system. We have to fix the law.

Bruce

Simple BSD allows rape

[SmallFurryCreature]

Business doesn't want to be restricted, no minimum wages, maximum working hours, safety rules, GNU style licenses.

The BSD license allows you to use the code without ever having to give back. Exactly the way business uses it.

The only thing you need to know about BSD is that Microsoft favours it.

Re:Simple BSD allows rape

[MsGeek]

Which is precisely why Microsoft has been pushing BSD licenses instead of the "viral" GPL. This Businessweek article is basically a truckload of astroturf on MS's behalf.

Re:Simple BSD allows rape

[eviltypeguy]

"rape"...

I write just about everything under a 3-clause BSD license. Do you know why? Because when I write something and give it away, it's really free to do whatever you want with (except of course claim it's your own).

While some people think it's "rape", there are many of us who write code, that picked a BSD license because we want anybody to be able to use our code without restrictions other than claiming it's their own. So software can be a true gift without any "strings" attached. So it isn't "rape".

Just the opinion of a programmer who writes BSD-licensed software...

Re:Leave me alone

[Rakshasa Taisab]

Exactly, i think most serious open source coders are well aware of what the license they choose means. I specifically choose GPL instead of LGPL for a library i'm writting because that's what i wanted.

I'm sorry if our licenses arn't corporate friendly.

This is a very poor article

[I_redwolf]

Mr. Wildstrom argues that patents are being violated and that OSRM has found 283 patent violations. A non biased person might then ask the question "How many other operating systems or patent violations are going on in closed source code? Can one even find out?" The answer to that question is that no one knows. Inevitably, your legal risk is the same if not greater. It's highly likely that a large majority of closed source vendors are also violating patents. Which would lead a non-biased person to believe that the problem is patents not Linux or Open-Source. Considering this OSRM and "insurance" is useless. If OSRM wasn't just a money grab and actually wanted to benefit Open Source considering there is the same risk involved they'd rename themselves Patent Risk Management.

Secondly, the author argues in favor for the BSD or the MPL licenses as it would clear up ambiguities and be less restrictive. Obviously, he doesn't say how. If he did then the statement would make no sense. Again a non-biased person would question how exactly they would benefit from switching their software to those licenses. The truth of the matter that the author neglects to mention is that it doesn't. It does benefit business that would like to use the code for free. The aspect/goal being to not submit any changes to the benefit of the community that provided said company with the code in the first place. Seeing as this is Business Week I concede to that view point.

The article in and of itself is a horrible piece of advice for business especially the nimble startups. I love Linux and Open-Source but I love money more. This article advice would do nothing to further your business or protect you at all. Even after all of this I'm not biased. If Microsoft could provide what open-source did even at a small fee I would pay. This isn't the case and for small to medium companies it just doesn't make sense. Also, if I was a software shop and could use some open-source to further my business for more money I would.

I could play into that whole "I'll sue you because you're violating my patent" but then I would of probably paid SCO a $699 license fee and or bought Microsoft software. Still, my risk is the same. So if this is about Business; then Business Week and the author of the article have done a poor job in telling me how exactly to save or make money. There are too many cases of people/companies profiting off of free software than not. Simply, someone who is non-biased and comes across this article has been disserviced.

If someone starts a magazine company that provided useful Business information with NO bias I'll subscribe.

Privatization wet dream

[Lulu of the Lotus-Ea]

I don't think the reporter's poor investigation has much to do with this piece. I'm not saying the "research" was any good--Bruce is probably right about the ignorance of Businessweek. But the knowledge part is kinda irrelevant.

Instead, Businessweek, being what they are, is in the business of fantasizing about free giveaways to large companies. Sort of the Enron model of capitalism. What could Businessweek readers like more than a massive donation of free programming efforts into the private coffers of big business? Well, I suppose they like massive corporate welfare even more (the Haliburton model); but they'd certainly be happy to accept the free money of "privatized" Free Software.

The patent issue is OF COURSE completely irrelevant here. Or maybe BSD-licensed software would be slightly more vulnerable to patent suits. But the difference is small, in any case. The main patent danger is big companies spending a lot more on lawyers than Free Software developers possibly can--and quite independent of the "merits" of patent claims, getting injunctions against Free Software.

Re:Privatization wet dream

[killjoe]

The funny thing is that the GPL only comes into play if you are modifying the source code AND redistributing it to third parties. What percent of corporate america does that? Maybe 1%?. For the 99 percent of corporations the GPL does not even apply. You don't have to agree with the GPL in order to USE software.

ABSOLUTELY CANNOT SWITCH TO BSD LICENSE

[Theovon]

Sorry about the yelling in the title, but anyone who suggests relicensing the Linux kernel is forgetting that the kernel is not written by one person. It's written by thousands of people, each of whom would have to relicense their code under BSD. Some of those people are dead. Some of them are unknown. Some of them would refuse to relicense. Some of them release under licenses which are not GPL but which state that they can be relicensed under GPL. The Linux kernel code may be technically a unified whole (to some extent or other), but LEGALLY, it is a collection of numerous pieces which all must be considered separately.

I think the BSD license if just fine. That isn't the issue. The issue is that in order to relicense the kernel under BSD, so much code which could not be relicensed would have to be ripped out that you would not have a kernel left.

So, while I can't say whether or not, generally speaking, the suggestion to switch licenses is an unwise one, I can definately say that it's a totally ignorant suggestion. Saying "relicense linux" is like saying "delete linux".

Re:ABSOLUTELY CANNOT SWITCH TO BSD LICENSE

[timmyf2371]

As another poster has stated, how would this work with the following clause of the GPL?

"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, OR (at your option) ANY LATER VERSION"

If another later version of the GPL was published and used, which was more in-line with the BSD license, would the desired effect not be possible?

Re:Despite this, BSD is still here.

[antiMStroll]

I don't know why you were down-modded, but you raise an excellent point. If the BSD license is so much more advantageous, then why do we have three incompatible 'BSDs totaling a small percentage the market penetration of Linux? They've all been around a comparable period of time. (BTW, I really like and use FreeBSD. This is about licenses.)

My favorite line

[sean.peters]

Unfortunately, the GPL is hardly a model of clarity

Hardly a model of clarity? It's one of the few license agreements that IANAL can understand without legal help!

Here's another precious quote:

"Some people argue that the GPL as a whole isn't even enforceable.... "

Where "some people" == "Darl McBride", apparently.

Sean

I wrote a rebuttal to this on a mailing list

[mav[LAG]]

Comments and clarifications welcome:

Linux is burdened with too much intellectual-property uncertainty for
many companies to embrace and develop it further

This entire column is complete bollocks as I will now explain. (FLOSS = Free Libre and Open Source Software - remember folks, brush and FLOSS
daily!)


The open-source movement has had a remarkable run of success that has seen software such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server emerge as major challenges to Microsoft (MSFT ). However, the movement is now facing a crisis. At its heart is a question that has been around from the very beginning: How does software owned by
everyone and by no one survive in a world where copyrights and patents shape the legal landscape?

The same way it's always done - by being more reliable, more agile, better maintained and better supported. I'm also not sure how the author thinks that open source is not copyrighted - all of it is by definition.

then owned by AT&T. Intellectual-property questions about Linux came to the forefront after the SCO Group (SCOX ), which acquired the Unix
trademarks, launched a series of lawsuits against alleged infringers of its rights.

Incorrect - SCO does NOT own the trademarks to Unix.

POTENTIAL INFRINGEMENTS. The central case, a 2003 suit against IBM (IBM ), an important corporate promoter of Linux, has degenerated into
a messy contract dispute with no intellectual-property issues left on the table. SCO's threats to sue companies that use Linux have almost entirely evaporated.

Because they were and are lies. But the author is mistaken. There are "intellectual property" issues aplenty left on the table. IP - which is a lazy and meaningless term that conglomerates at least three kinds of entirely different sets of laws on intangible rights - is going to bite SCO severely because IBM is now suing it for distributing Linux without a license.

But now another problem has surfaced. Open Source Risk Management, a new outfit that indemnifies its customers against infringement claims, found in a review of Linux code that the operating system potentially infringes on 283 patents. Although IBM declared it would make no
effort to enforce its 60 patents involved, some are held by Linux foes, including 27 by Microsoft.

Patents granted in its infinite stupidity by the US patent office. Maths should not be patented.

The potential patent infringements pose no immediate threat to Linux. Such disputes typically take years to resolve, and courts rarely issue
injunctions against alleged infringers. But the uncertainty is taking a toll. In the most significant response to date, the city government
in Munich, Germany, has suspended a massive transition of desktop computers from Microsoft Windows to Linux, pending clarification of
the patent situation (see BW Online, 8/9/04, "Will Legal Fears Freeze the Penguin?").

Munich is going ahead.

But open-source proponents also have to get their own intellectual-property house in order.

Again - what is meant by intellectual property here? Does he mean copyrights? All FLOSS is copyrighted. Does he mean trademarked? The
brands that matter are trademarked. Does he mean patented? Sorry but the vast majority of FLOSS developers don't really care whether the US
allows the patenting of maths or not. If he's talking about "ownership" then he's wrong. As the SCO episode demonstrated, every single line of Linux can be accounted for - unlike many closed-source vendors.

The development of open-source software is increasingly dominated by corporate interests that, one way or another, want to use Linux,
Apache, and other open-source products to make money.

No - it's the other way around. Businesses have to decide why and how they are going to use open source software to survive. Plenty already have decided to use it to make money and give b

Re:And of course...

[oolon]

I was just saying the GPL rather a good method for attracting contributions, not that it was the only way. Companies (who are the copyright owner) can even use it to showcase the code and allow commerical licencing to companies if required (trolltech for example). If trolltech offered a BSD version they would have never sold anything. XFree86 which was BSD had alot of problems attracting manufactures to contribute driver code, evenually having to go down the binary route as a result. GPL seems a better half way house to me... but thats me I like GPL alot more than BSD licence.

James

wrong problem, wrong solution

[samantha]

The problem is the very existence of software patents. The solution is to eliminate them. Anything less is endless catering to and reinforcement of insanity.

A step in the wrong direction

[digital photo]

All of the examples cited by businessweek are problems which come up because Linux represents a new way of doing things where the abuse of the copyrights and patents system is the problemn. Linux remains a growing and evolving product because it IS under the GPL license and not the BSD/Mozilla/etc licenses.

Companies want to think in terms of: "If we know something the competitors don't, we have an advantage. Let's screw our competitors and make all the money ourselves." That kind of thinking goes against the idea of OpenSource and the GPL due to the requirement to make source available in the event that the original source is modified.

Linksys tried to pull that stunt when they first started and faced a backlash. Companies see this backlash, this reversal of the command chain where the customers are telling them what they can and cannot be doing to be a threat and a risk.

The GPL code is what keeps Linux open and free for all to enjoy. If the licensed changed, then you will begin to see variants of the Linux Kernel which only one company supported because it was modified to work in a certain way. No review of that kernel is possible anymore because the code is locked and the customer is now, once again, at the mercy of the company for patches, security updates, and fixes.

I'm sure that businessweek and the respective folk who think it is the way to go think that way in all honesty believing it will make Linux better... but this is only because this makes it better for them and them alone.

The GPL license under which Linux is licensed is the solution to the current problem with Copyrights and Patents abuse by large companies in not honouring the spirit of the Copyright and Patents agreements: The eventual release of the rights to the public domain.

Linux is available to both businesses and the public, but is maintained and controlled by the Open Source community AND the Business community. Perhaps _some_ businesses don't like that kind of shared control...

The GPL is like garlic.

[miffo.swe]

Businesses who want to use the code and not give anything back is the only ones who are having problems with the GPL. I for one cant imagine a better way to ensure that no company or person can pillage and burn the remains and walk away with the tresure. Invalidating the GPL would only put the rights back to their respective owners so that wouldnt help one bit. For a company like Microsoft or any other predatory its hard to nail a couple of million coders working for free. The GPL is what holds them together.

Many would surely like the GPL to be lifted so they could steal all the code and then make the authors pay for their own (then incompatible) code!

The reason i dont like the BSD license is that i would have a hard time coughing up dough to buy a product i had a part in and that the one who took the code made incompatible with my original code, deliberatly! I dont like its "please rimjob me twice" kind of message.

Re:All your examples are OK w/ GPL

[Macka]

Of cause they can all use GPL code too, so what. Does that make the BSD license evil? Not a bit, BSD code is also free, is also written by open source hackers. Tell me again why BSD code is evil, and this time back it up with reasoned well thought out arguments if you can. Or is it that you only recognise one style of freedom, automatically condemning anyone who doesn't share your world view?

Now, go read the Halloween document collection.

And how exactly are they supposed to support your accusation? BSD is attacked equally in two of those documents, and completely ignored in the rest. Have you actually bothered reading them yourself?

Fact: GPL is not evil
Fact: BSD is not evil

Get over it!

The debate in a nutshell

[Brandybuck]

For those of you too busy to real of the puerile comments on Slashdot today, here's the GPL versus BSD debate in a nutshell:

A) People who do not code, or whose code consists of a single buggy PHP module done last weekend, claim that the BSD license is a "license to rape, pillage, and steal."

B) People who actually code for a living will say "use the license you want, and I'll use the license I want."

Re:hmmm, that's cruel

[Grishnakh]

The authors shouldn't have to rewrite your library because they aren't copying, modifying or distributing it. In this situation the GPL is a license to "take someone else's work and dictate to them how it will be used."

A library is simply a convenient way to reuse code by having a set of functions that can be called from other separate programs. If you don't want to agree to the stipulations of the GPL, you're free to write your own library. Your last statement doesn't even make sense. No one forced the library author to write his library in the first place; without it, the application writer would have to do it from scratch. Again, if you don't agree to the license terms, you're free to find another solution.

Lastly, you obviously didn't read the parent post I replied to. He stated that the GPL shouldn't be used at all because it's "too greedy", and that the LGPL should be used in its place for everything, not just libraries.

Re:And of course...

[Zork the Almighty]

I think that re-releasing code under a more restrictive licence is unethical, period. And I think the real difference between the GPL and BSD development model is one of effort. The people who keep FreeBSD open and competitive have expend a lot of effort to do it. Often, (as you note), various improvements are contributed back, but the developers can't rely on that like the GPL developers can.

Each licence has its own strengths. I think the GPL is a better licence to have in a competitive marketplace, because it can better defend against companies with unethical tactics. The BSD style licences are better suited to well-developed technology, where technical excellence is the main consideration, and competitive posturing is minimized.

Re:Bruce - You made his point.

[Bruce Perens]

Dear AC,

Yes, I think you are missing something. The court found that the univeristy work was infringing because it obliquely served a commercial purpose of the university such as attracting students. There didn't have to be a direct relationship and the non-profit status was held to be immaterial.

Analogously, as somebody who has upon occassion worked as a programmer, my private programming at home could arguably serve the purpose of increasing my experience, and thus my value as a programmer. Thus it would not necessarily be protected.

Indeed, if you read this report it says there is no educational use exception. It's not an exception for curiousity unless it's idle curiousity, entertainment, or (get this) philosophical inquiry. Note that philosophical inquiry used to include scientific inquiry, but the court certainly does not mean that in this case or they would have ruled otherwise!

Note also that the original comment in this thread is regarding Free Software and whether it is non-commercial for purposes of patent law and thus can infringe with impunity. The problem is that we can not make a case that Free Software is not intended for commercial use. Indeed, in writing the Open Source Definition, I very specificaly required that the licenses make commercial use possible. If asked to testify, I'd have to say that.

Thanks

Bruce