RMS Blasts Sun's Open Source Patent Licensing

cdlu writes "RMS takes Sun to task on its recent announcement that it is releasing 1,600 patents to the open source community. Among the major points, the license the patents are released under doesn't apply to patents, and Sun has not promised to not sue anyone using the technology within free software projects."

Comments

In other news...

[mooniejohnson]

In other news, touchdowns scored during SuperBowl, Microsoft releases FUD against Linux, Anonymous Cowards seek First Post, and people complain about poll options.

Just very RMS. ;-)

Re:In other news...

[Megaweapon]

Actually he's almost always right.

Better said, some people frequently agree with RMS's opinions.

Re:In other news...

[mooniejohnson]

Actually, I can't give them back. I'm saving up all the seconds I steal to buy you a sense of humor.

Nice job, Sun.

[sparkster812]

I think it's a great thing Sun has done for the community, regardless of the feelings some people have for them. It's definitely got a positive spin on it, and hopefully will result in more open source software.

Re:Nice job, Sun.

[einhverfr]

Having been following this controversy for a while, I am not so sure. The following concerns have been raised:

1) Patents may have been donated only to CDDL projects, which would still preclude them from being used in GPL'd projects.

2) It is not clear what the actual scope of the licensing is and whether it will be GPL-compliant.

I am hopeful that these issues can be worked out, but it is too soon to tell whether this will actually be helpful or just a publicity stunt devoid of any real meaning.

Re:Nice job, Sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

Though I would readily agree that Sun has done a lot of good things for the community, releasing, or rather not releasing this patents certainly isn't one of them.

So what did Sun do? They basicly opensource Solaris under a license that makes sure that the Solaris code can not be used in any opensource projects not under the especially created license (which is every other open source project out there) and then with a lot of noise declared that people developing for Solaris will not be sued for patent infringment by Sun.

It's really hard to see what exactly you call a nice job about that.

Re:Nice job, Sun.

[Anonymous Coward]

1) It's pretty clear that patents have only been donated to CDDL projects (that is in fact people working on Solaris) and that GPL'd projects, or any other open source project not under the CDDL are excluded. And I don't think one can really speak of the patents being donated, it's simply a necessity for Sun to make sure that people are actually able to work on OpenSolaris and they wouldn't be if they were not allowed to use the patents.

2) I may be wrong, but from my understanding it's clear right now that the licens is not GPL-compliant.

Re:Nice job, Sun.

[Rooktoven]

That's a big IF, as in IF you download them. GNU tools aren't part of the default Solaris Distro-- at least they weren't with 7 and 8. Maybe that's changed.

Before we went to all Macs with a Linux backbone, we always had to download stuff off of Sun Freeware to get a get reasonable commmand line tools.

Re:Nice job, Sun.

[Vile Slime]

To,

All those who modded down the parent take note of the following:

It's Sun's property, they can do whatever they want with their property.

Anybody/everyone who thinks that if source code is opened for viewing that it must also be opened for use with the GPL or Tom-Dick-and-Harry's License is full of it.

I'm sure that the powers that be at Sun would be more than happy to tell RMS to stick it you know where. Just as RMS seems to think it is his God given right to do all so often.

Re:Nice job, Sun.

[tonyr60]

"2) It is not clear what the actual scope of the licensing is and whether it will be GPL-compliant"

Depends what GPL-Compliant means. CDDL is very similar to GPL and appears to have much the same end game - if you develop with CDDL/GPL then all derivative works must use the same license.

However that also means that they are mutually un-compliant. Something developed under the GPL cannot be licensed under CDDL and vice-versa.

Re:Nice job, Sun.

[tu_holmes]

Actually, I believe Solaris 8 included the "Solaris Software Companion".

It was lots of open source stuff... including Gnome and KDE, long before the Java Desktop System.

Sun Freeware was just the latest and greatest... plus a few other things that may not have been included on the Solaris CD.

Copy Right Infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Last year IBM took a significant step forward in cooperation with the free software community, by offering blanket licenses for 500 of its patents to all free software developers. This does not cover all of IBM's software patents, which must number in the thousands. And there are other areas where IBM does not yet cooperate with the free software community--they have not provided the necessary information to port a free BIOS to ThinkPads, for instance, and they are still pursuing Treacherous Computing. Nonetheless, this is a real step. Recently Sun made an announcement that superficially seems similar. It said that Sun had given us "free access to Sun OpenSolaris related patents under the Common Development and Distribution License." But those words do not really make sense. The CDDL is a license for the copyright on software, not a policy for licensing patents. It applies to specific code and nothing else. (Copyright and patents have essentially nothing in common in the requirements they impose on the public.)

So what has really happened here? Reading the announcement clearly, I think that it doesn't announce anything at all. It simply describes, in a different and grandiose way, the previously announced release of the Solaris source code as free software under Sun's idiosyncratic license, the CDDL. Outside Solaris, few or no free software packages use that license--and Sun has not said it won't sue us for implementing the same techniques in our own free software.

Perhaps Sun will eventually give substance to its words, and make this step a real one like IBM's. Perhaps some other large companies will take similar steps. Would this make free software safe from the danger of software patents? Would the problem of software patents be solved? Not on your life. Neither one.

We can be quite sure that not all large patent holders will do this. In fact, there is one company with lots of patents that surely won't take such a step. That is Microsoft, which says it is our enemy. Microsoft would love to make useful free software effectively illegal, and has plenty of money to pay lawyers to use whatever avenues governments provide them.

But the danger is not only from those that specifically consider us their enemies. It also comes from patent holders that are the enemy of everyone. These are the patent parasites--companies whose sole assets are patents, and whose only business is threats. Patent parasites don't really produce anything, they only suck the blood of those who do. As regards their choice of victims, they have the scruples of a mosquito, so you're only safe if they don't think you're worth biting.

Consider, for instance, the company founded by ex-Microsoft executive Myhrvold, which cheerfully says it is spending $350M to buy up patents (not specifically in software) so it can go around threatening and bullying everyone else. Of course, these parasites don't like to describe their activities in such terms. Much as the mafia, when it threatens to attack local businesses unless they pay, says it is charging for "protection", Myhrvold's company prefers to say it is "renting out" the patents. It expects this investment in what we could call the "patent protection racket" to pay off handsomely. For that to occur, lots of people have to get bitten.

The danger of software patents is not limited to free software, which is why the opposition to software patents is not limited to free software developers. Everyone involved with computers, aside from the megacorporations, must expect to lose. For instance, proprietary software developers are much more likely to be the victims of patents than to have a chance to use patents for aggression. Although I don't think proprietary software is ethically legitimate, it is a fact that developers of proprietary software are in the same danger from patents, and many of them know it.

Then think of all the software that is neither free nor proprietary: private-use software, software developed for and used by one client. Most software is pri

Re:Copy Right Infringement

[einhverfr]

This does not cover all of IBM's software patents, which must number in the thousands.

Missing a zero somewhere?

Re:Copy Right Infringement

[byolinux]

Copyright 2005 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide without royalty in any medium provided this notice is preserved. ;)

Re:Copy Right Infringement

[Bruce Perens]

I think the difference between IBM and Sun in this case is that IBM did not give us everything, but did not attempt to tell us that they were. Sun attempted to promote that they were giving more than they actually did.

Thanks

Bruce

Re:Copy Right Infringement

[Bruce Perens]

It would help defuse the "Gimme, gimme, gimme" public image that you people have cultivated ever so diligently over the past few years.

You sound as if you are deliberately trying to be offensive. If you haven't noticed, we are the folks who have been creating software and giving it away with licenses designed to keep the software free for everyone and without the patent strings that Sun is imposing on the process. We just want the right to continue to give away our own work and have everyone use it as they please. The gimmie-gimmie-gimmie is coming from folks who think they have the right to own ideas and keep others from using those ideas.

You send the message that you're about the destruction of property rights that we've held as axiomatic for centuries.

You mean since approximately 1984. There was no software patenting before the court case that made it legal in the U.S.. Even the U.S. patent office thought it was a bad idea. You can't possibly be that ignorant of history. You must just be trolling.

Bruce

Re:Copy Right Infringement

[Bruce Perens]

Leo,

Saying you are stunned is a rhetorical device. And you're doing it wrong, anyway. Try this way:

I am stunned, stunned that you...

It's important to italicize the second one. It gives it that breathless sort of flavor.

Slavery was the first one I thought of, and certainly it's the most obvious sort of property ownership that is held to be offensive these days but in an earlier day was legal, and socially acceptable - indeed the ownership of many slaves was held to be a sign of high social status at one time. As a society, we've grown up since then. But we still have much growing to do.

No doubt there are hundreds of forms of property ownership that our society has chosen to prohibit, limit, or tax.

So, your claim that software patents can wear some sort of mantle of virtue that is accorded to property ownership is bogus.

In fact, I am stunned, stunned, that you even hold such an opinion. :-)

Bruce

Re:Copy Right Infringement

[808140]

Judging by the eloquence with which you both write, it seems unfortunate that your conversation should regress into this sort of competition-to-see-who-can-be-the-most-condescendi ng thing.

Of course I'm just a nameless number on a message board so I won't deceive myself about the import of my opinion in all this. But as reasonably impartial third party, it seems to me, Leo, that for all your talk about Bruce being condescending, you're the one that is maligning your own position with your heavy hand.

Now, I won't deny that some of what you've said has been insightful, but consider: you've phrased virtually every response to Bruce in this thread as if you were a professor in public relations. Some of the points you've made -- regarding phrasing things in a way that makes them appealing to someone who would otherwise be hostile to your platform -- are true, from a PR perspective, and I believe I should know, as PR is my profession (though in semiconductor manufacturing, not software). But the way in which you attempt to lecture Bruce makes you seem like the intellectual blowhard, when it seems that you desperately want to make him seem that way.

Furthermore, while some of your comments on, for example, business hostility to RMS's platform are unarguably true, your attempt to marginalize Linux, of all things, is just laughable! I'm going to talk from a completely business-oriented perspective here, and say with absolute confidence: Linux is, in the minds of today's IT-savvy businesspeople, the next big thing. That's why adverts for Linux-based solutions are popping up everywhere; that's why companies like IBM and Novell are pumping more money than you or I will make in a lifetime into it. It is seen by many, many knowledgeable people as the future, and by many companies as a serious threat.

Its future is not certain -- Bruce, ironically, has been making posts exactly to that effect throughout this story -- but to think that you could seriously imply that in 10 years Linux will be relegated to anything as trivial as an "Anyone remember Linux?" one-liner on a future message board is just silly.

I'm not sure that GNU has been a PR success, and it's quite likely that this is exactly for the reasons you enumerated. But Linux? Come on, be serious. It's a tremendous success. Everyone is talking about it. It's gaining mindshare at a tremendous rate. Non-technical people know the word, even if they don't know what it means. It runs much of the internet we use everyday. It's a tremendous, phenomenal success, whether you agree with its idealogy or not.

Further, there's much more to a "company" than a group of people united with a common goal -- someone with as sophisticated a vocabulary as yourself must be aware of this. A company has the distinctive implication of a group of people united with a common goal, certainly -- a goal that involves making money. Otherwise, Médecins Sans Frontières, Greenpeace, the Libertarian party -- all would be companies! Your definition is so wide as to be useless.

Community, movement, collective -- they have their good points and their bad points, all of them, because of the feelings they give the people that hear them. Company is like this as well -- ultra-capitalists especially are wary of companies, knowing full well that they (rightly) owe nothing to anyone but themselves.

Public relations is all about giving the public the impression you want them to have. In this game, audience is everything. Bruce is not talking to a bunch of suits looking to buy his product -- he's preaching to the choir. Most everyone here agrees with him (exceptions noted). Therefore, there is no reason for him to go around sounding like a PR flak.

Bruce, I've always been impressed with how tempered you manage to sound, but it seems to me that you let Leo push your buttons a little bit too much in this thread, and it did make you come off as

Interesting discussion point.

[byolinux]

Basically, RMS argues that the Sun announcement offers 1600 patents for CDDL (their license for OpenSolaris) and doesn't clearly state that they are opening their portfolio to all free software licenses.

If they do that: Great. If they don't: That's not so good, Al.

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[Bruce Perens]

You mean that Sun does not clearly state that they are not opening their portfolio to all Open Source developers. Indeed, I think they deceptively state that they are. When you read the fine print ("under the CDDL license and the OpenSolaris developer process") you only realize that they are not offering it to all Open Source projects if you understand Open Source licensing issues.

Bruce

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[Bruce Perens]

If they offer it to all Open Source projects under all currently-accepted Open Source licenses, I'll sing it from the rooftops for them.

Specifically, the grant is promoted as being to the community of Open Source developers, but its terms restrict it to software that is under a license that is unique to Solaris. The Linux developers, who use a different license, can be sued for using the same patents. And Sun attempts to tell us how charitable a community member they are for doing this. It has a deceptive flavor that sticks in the craw of many Open Source developers.

Bruce

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[Bruce Perens]

Some folks with law degrees understand pieces better than I. I specialize in being a bridge between different groups, like law and engineering. Somebody's got to be able to explain one side to the other.

The point of my statement is that you can lie in a press release and most readers, even highly educated ones, won't realize. They don't have the specialized knowledge. So, it's up to people like us to point out details that others might miss.

Bruce

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[starseeker]

This may not be a strictly relevant point, but I'll bring it up anyway:

What are the odds that, of those 1,600 patents, NONE of them are violated by Linux in its current form? (I'm assuming near zero, since both Solaris and Linux are unix like operating systems. Has anybody with sufficient knowledge actually looked at the patents in question?)

If Sun were worried about killing Linux or other open source software, I don't think they would need to resort to trying to get people to suck in their code and then sue them. In most cases they don't need to waste their time - a simple filing of a patent case, even of no merit whatsoever, is enough to torpedo most open source programs. The options are a) pay up or b) break the patent. Either one takes $$. So why try a bait and switch approach when all they need to do is swing a flyswatter?

The Linux kernel and a few other programs might be able to mount some kind of defense, but if you want to kill the open source movement you don't need to kill the Linux kernel. You just hit the wealth of small, non-funded private projects that make Linux and friends worth using. A kernel is pretty useless by itself. Even if the big projects could survive, open source as such would still die.

Maybe I'm blind, but I just don't see how the CDDL and the patent "release" does anything except highlight a problem that has always been there and is still there. Twenty useless, indefensible, overly broad patents could conceivably be enough to sink 10,000 open source projects in the wrong hands. And if they go after users it's The End, regardless. Maybe Sun is trying to bait a booby trap here, but I just can't see it. If Sun has those patents, they are a potential headache for Linux no matter what, if they cover things that people might want to include in the kernel. If Sun wants to be a bad guy there is nothing stopping them even without the CDDL. So the upshot is, they're exactly the same problem they were to begin with. Maybe it would be easier to prove patent violation if CDDL code were used, but if matters reach that stage for most open source projects it's already far too late.

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[KiloByte]

They not only don't do god, they're damage to the Free Software community. Those patents are a means of sucking developers into their not-compatible-with-anything license. Code that you develop under CDDL cannot be used in anything that even links a GPLed library, and your CDDL-licensed libraries cannot be used in GPL programs. Thus, we would be better off without this "gift".

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[Bruce Perens]

What are the odds that, of those 1,600 patents, NONE of them are violated by Linux in its current form?

OSRM has a list of patents they found that Linux might infringe upon. No court has ruled whether or not any of those patents are valid. My attorney can look at the list and answer some questions, but I can't look at it. If I did, it would contaminate my work on Linux and I might have to pay triple damages for knowing infringement rather than unknowing. The law is set up so that you get penalized if you look. This is just one of the many very bad things about the software patent system.

My fear is that without a direct patent attack on Linux, Sun has no hope of making further headway with Solaris. Give the Linux folks just two years and there will be no value left to Solaris, Linux will have far overtaken it.

Bruce

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[Bruce Perens]

I confirmed with Sun's representative that the patents were only licensed for the CDDL and the OpenSolaris process. The legal text does not yet exist.

Sun has been posturing about Linux in a hostile way for about two years. I think that what we are seeing is the prelude to a patent lawsuit against Linux developers.

Bruce

Re:Interesting discussion point.

[WebMink]

> If Sun didn't plan to do anything in the face of Linux,
> they would not have promoted their grant as one to all
> Open Source developers.

Personally, while I find the press release to leave plenty of questions unanswered and to be phrased for reading outside the developer community, I didn't come to the same conclusion you did when I read it and can't see why you do. It's just clueless PR-speak, not grand conspiracy by an evil genius.

On the subject of OpenOffice.org, what has copyright aggregation to do with patents? It's pretty common practice (Apache demands it for example) and is about the governance of the community, not the defence of patent suits. I agree that the Microsoft settlement left a bad taste but I don't think it was part of grand conspiracy, just a deep desire to end a crippling lawsuit. If it's Microsoft contracts and money that influence your judgement of the F/OSS motives of a company then surely this site should have you looking at some other gift-horses too?

in the wise words of Admiral Ackbar

[kevinx]

Its a TRAP!

Promised?

[slavemowgli]

What difference would it make if Sun "promised" to not sue free software projects "using" those patents? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think a mere promise wouldn't hold up in court, anyway.

Re:Promised?

[slipstick]

Actually it would make a great deal of difference. I'm a little lazy today but if you go search google for IBM's announcement regarding their 500 patents you will see that it is given in very specific legalese that I'm quite convinced would stand up in court as a "license" to use their patents.

So the "promise" requested from Sun isn't just a "we promise not to sue", it is a very specific request for a "use license" for the patents. Such a license can be posted on their website independent of their CDDL license which is a copyright license only.

Re:Promised?

[Aim Here]

Actually, you're wrong. 'Promissory estoppel' is the legal terminology in a number of english-speaking countries for promises which DO hold up in court. There are a number of circumstances where if I say 'You can do X without me suing you' then I legally can't sue you for X.

Re:Promised?

[Landaras]

IANAL (yet). This is not legal advice.

You are right in that donative promises are generally not enforceable in court. However, there is a legal doctrine called "reliance."

Specifically, if I make an unenforcable donative promise to you, and you reasonably and foreseeably rely on that promise, the courts will step in and enforce that promise.

The textbook example of reliance is a company that promises a worker a pension in return "for the consideration of his many years of previous service." The problem is that prior consideration (in this case the previous years of service) can not be bargained for, and we fail to have a binding contract here since consideration is offered by the company (the pension) in exchange for no consideration by the worker.

However, due to the equitable principle of reliance, if the worker retires (which would be reasonable and foreseeable) the courts will enforce the promised pension.

So, if Sun publicly promised to not sue open / free software projects for using their patents, you reasonably and foreseeably rely upon that promise to use their patents in a open / free software project, and Sun sued you or others for patent infringement, the courts could be reasonably expected to enforce Sun's earlier promise.

Remember though, that Sun has not promised to not sue you for using their patents outside the CDDL, and even if they did you might have to pay a lawyer to get a court to enforce said promise.

- Neil Wehneman

Re:Promised?

[Russ Nelson]

If you say "I'm not going to sue you over X", and then you go ahead and do it, the judge will basically say "If you don't believe yourself, why should we?"
-russ

Re:He's right!

[JohnFluxx]

How about the Open Source community just not immediately trusting gifts given?

There seems to be this view that if someone offers a gift, then being suspicious of their motives is bad.

Slashdot commentators are very bad at analogies, so I won't break that tradition with this one:

Various charities, such as greenpeace etc, are very wary about companies wanting to talk to them and/or give them gifts. Because often the companies then turn around and claim they are 'working with' greenpeace etc, without actually doing anything.

Re:He's right!

[GigsVT]

This is more like looking a trojan horse in the mouth.

He's pretty much right

[RLiegh]

What truly scares me is the lack of long-term thinking among some open source projects that I keep track of with regards to the CDDL. The best example I can give is that I was reading the forums over at the ReactOS project; and OpenSolaris was mentioned. IIRC, No-one in the entire thread (which was about using some of OS in ROS) mentioned the patent angle...and given that ROS could easily be shut down over it, that omission alarmed me.

OpenSolaris (Or any CDDL project) is a torpedo waiting to sink any GPL project whose members happen to think about looking at CDDL code.

RMS is right on this, and he should be; he crafted the GPL during the days when reading AT&T code carried similar considerations.

Re:He's pretty much right

[Bruce Perens]

Dear AC,

This is a case where using an idea from the code you read can hurt you. Cut and paste is necessary to infringe on copyright, only use of a similar algorithm is necessary to infringe a patent.

Bruce

Re:He's pretty much right

[RLiegh]

You must not remember that people who read the original Unix code were considered legally tainted.

Yes, just by reading it.

That's a good part of what drove RMS to create the Free Software movement in the first place.

As far as what you remember; it's not the code, it's the algorhithms that the patents cover, and the methods that the programs use, that potentially are the issue.

As far as getting in trouble, it depends on how you define 'trouble'. If someone from ReactOS (just continuing the example) admits to having both submitted code for ReactOS and having (merely) read the source tree for OpenSolaris or portiens thereof it's entirely feasible for Sun to turn around and take the ReactOS foundation to court over any patents that Sun feels that ReactOS infringes on.

Outside of Linux, I can't think of that many OSS projects who can withstand a legal assault, wether they'd be innocent or not.

Re:He's pretty much right

[katre]

You're exactly right, they shouldn't be allowed to look. And writers shouldn't be allowed to read Shakespeare, they might steal his plots. And artists can't look at the paintings of Picasso, they might imitate his style. And musicians certainly shouldn't ever listen to anything, they might steal a riff or two! It'd be a terrible world if people could learn from others and be inspired.

Re:He's pretty much right

[Wordsmith]

And this is why software patents are a bad thing.

A writer or artist can look at one of those works, because they're not subject to patent protections like the Sun code or WinNT code is. It's unfortunate, but borrowing an idea from Sun or Windows can get a programmer in a heap of trouble.

If all was right with the world and software patents didn't exist, this would be a non-issue.

Re:He's pretty much right

[Bruce Perens]

There is a fundamental difference between patents and copyright. Copyright covers the literal embodiment of someone else's work. Patents really cover ideas. They aren't supposed to, they are supposed to cover concrete implementations of ideas, but the computer has blurred that distinction.

Even if you never look at the other side's code, if you use a similar algorithm to theirs, and they've patented it, they can sue you for infringement. Even if you invented it independently. Indeed, some patents are so vaguely written that they can be used to sue people regarding ideas that were not yet invented when the patent was filed.

Supose that someone sued you and you knew you were right. Would you have the funds to prove that in court? Probably not. You'd have to admit they were right and settle for whatever terms they wish.

I can't overemphasize how badly the system stinks. It rewards bad actions at every level.

Bruce

Re:He's right!

[Eberlin]

Now now, RMS can be a windbag once in a while, but on occasion he's been proven to be right. The revolution takes all kinds, soldier, and this guy (and the FSF) has gotten us pretty far.

I'm personally not a big fan of the Sun-MS and I guess that's my personal bias. They've done their share of good for the OSS movement, but have also done some incredibly damaging things to OSS as well. They're one of those wait-and-see types.

If the Chief GNU is barking at something, I'm willing to bet there's something there that's at least worth investigating. To borrow from your allusion, some gift horses come with nasty surprises.

He is right...

[ThinkTiM]

software patents are the major threat to anyone in the software business who doesn't have a 7 figure bank account. And he is not allowing any distracting moves (such as open-sourcing Solaris) to change his fight against them.

What is the point of open-sourcing Solaris (read free as in freedom) if we can't be sure of using the code that has been "opened" to further the open-source movement? Sun must open its software patents in order to do this.

Re:He's right!

[Ur@eus]

Well Troy accepted the horse and they where not so happy for it afterwards. Not all 'gifts' are equal.

uh-oh

[revery]

RMS takes Sun to task...

Later on, he gave IBM a stern talking to, and then towards the end of the article, he gave Microsoft a vigorous tongue lashing. Also, mosquitos, as a species, were maligned.

Seriously guys, the trash talk is getting embarrassing...

Go suck eggs

[n1ywb]

RMS is one of the greatest allies of free software. He has stuck firmly to the principles he believes in. He has dedicated his life to evangelizing free software. He is in no small part responisble for the GPL and GNU/Linux. Can you say the same about yourself?

Schwartz blasts IBM patent hooie

[wombatmobile]

Somewhat similarly, Sun honcho Jonathon Schwartz posts these comments about IBM's patent assignments to the OSS movement in his blog:

ps. You've got to love IBM's ability to play the community. Going through some of the patents they "donated" to the open source community a few weeks back, it looks as if they all, curiously, seem to be due for payment - and thus potential expiration - this year. Were they destined for the bit bucket (turns out IBM is among the largest patent expirers in the world, along with its largest issuer).

And some of the patents have nothing to do with open source software - my favorite in the heap is this one.

Re:Schwartz blasts IBM patent hooie

[turgid]

Shhhhhh....You're not supposed to diparage IBM here, silly! Slashdot runs on DB2, and IBM rulez whereas Sun SuX0rz, don't you know?

The world of Richard Stallman

[wheelbarrow]

I have no problem with the world according to Richard Stallman as long as compliance is voluntary.

As a software creator I am free to choose to release the software for free and I am free to demand payment for my software. On the other side of the coin, consumers are free to accept my terms or not.

Oh wait, we already live in that world. So what is his beef with people making decisions for themselves?

Re:The world of Richard Stallman

[byolinux]

Free Software, in the GPL/FSF/Stallman sense is not about price at all. You should make money from your software, you should sell it- just allow people to study and modify it, redistribute and distribute it too.

What is the software you are creating? Software like Adobe Photoshop, or custom software for internal use/a client?

Don't forget - the FSF sells Free Software too. It helps them survive.

Re:Is this really news?

[Ur@eus]

RMS doesn't mind things not being GPL, in fact in many circumstances he supports it. He openely supported making the Ogg codecs BSD/MIT style licensed for instance. What he is blasting is Sun pretending do to one thing (give patents use rights to open source community) while actually doing another thing (promising not to sue Solaris developers)

Re:*/OpenSolaris

[RailGunner]

// Stallmanize a sentence!
string Stallmanize (char *szBuf)
{
string stallman = "";
char seps[] = " ";
char *token = strtok (szBuf, seps);
while (token)
{
stallman += "GNU/";
stallman += token;
token = strtok (NULL, seps);
}
return stallman;
}

Proper punctuation in the string is left as an excerise to the reader. Besides, it's a frickin joke.

Re:Is this really news?

[InfiniteWisdom]

longest journey beginning with a single step
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So long as that step is in the right direction.

zeal sometimes does as much harm as good
You mean like zealously opposing anything RMS says without offering a shred of reasoning one way or
the other about what he actually said? (and I'm guessing without reading the article either)

A good business strategy.

[john_anderson_ii]

Unfortunately I see it as a gimmick.

Let's look at Sun's Open Source strategy:
You can take OpenSolaris source code and modify it. You cannot take OpenSolaris patented concepts and place them into other works OSS or otherwise. If things pan out for Sun that means they will have a large developer base dumping code into Solaris, which will make Solaris better and more competitive. Sun basically just improved Solaris with no R&D by leveraging the OSS community. It appears, as of now, that Sun is in this for free skilled labor and nothing else. They are trying to have their cake (revenues from Solaris) and eat it to (no competing products resulting from Open Solaris concepts because of patent issues). The open code without the freedom from patents is like saying "Hey, developers, help me make a buck off this OS by contributing your code for free."

It doesn't take a zealot or a great deal of common sense to notice this. I say let Sun do it, and when they don't attract the huge developer base they hoped to attract maybe they will rethink their OSS approach.

Re:He's right!

[sloanster]

Only with an Open Source zealot can he look a gift horse in the mouth, and after inspecting each and every gold cap, yell at the giver for not putting in platinum with extra dental service for life like he wanted.

Let's break it down for you. To use your analogy, Sun gives itself a gift horse, and shows it to the open source community.

Sun: "see all these gold teeth?"

Open Source Community: (shrugs) "They're OK I guess..."

Sun: "I'll let you take a closer look at these teeth, study them, and improve upon them by redesigning/refactoring them, and improving the manufacturing process if you sign up for our special license!"

Open source community: "Oh, so we can look at the design of the teeth, think about how we've managed our own horse's teeth, and contribute our best ideas and work hard to improve your horses, is that it?"

Sun: "Of course, won't that be fun?"

Open Source Community: "So, does it work both ways? I mean, we can then think about how you've implemented your horse's gold teeth, and maybe use some of the ideas to improve our own horse's teeth, right?"

Sun: (confers with lawyers, who violently signal a negative response) "Let's not worry about that for now, the main thing is, you can all work hard to make our horse healthy, strong and more popular than ever, and won't that be fun?"

Open Source Community: "So, we are supposed to take up a new hobby, improving your horse's teeth, right? That's cool, we like programming... But just to be clear, are you saying you won't sue us if we use some of the ideas to improve our own horses teeth?"

Sun: (glances at lawyers, who give him dirty looks and pantomime a slicing motion across their throats) "I'm not sure what you're getting at here, and I really don't know what you expect from us. Come on, this is offered in good faith, so just trust me, OK?"

Open Source Community: "Well, that is certainly a great offer, but I think I'll pass for now. I mean, it sounds like a blast and all, but I've got my hands full taking care of my own horses. But hey dude, listen, take care and good luck with it, aight?"

Agreed...

[jpardey]

lots of idiots on this board simply saying "RMS is teh l4m3 lololol." Most people seem not to have read the article. Sun is just doing what Apple did with Darwin, and "giving" the right to use Solaris code for Sun's (and Solaris users, yes) benifit, while preventing the code from being used elsewhere, and sailing under the open source flag. If they want to do that, fine, but I am glad to see RMS complain.

Am I the only one who thinks this is getting old?

[McDutchie]

Whenever RMS is mentioned in an article, some variation of the same old GNU/Linux joke comes up, and invariably gets modded up. This is getting way more tiring than RMS's own harping on adding the GNU/ to Linux. What if we just STFU about it, okay? We know the good man is a dork, now. Let's pay some attention to his points instead; some of them may be worth listening to and even have some importance.

yes: RMS is nuts. no, he's not wrong this time

[ignorant_newbie]

It's easy to ignore what he says, because he's obviously nuts. But, attacking the speaker instead of the argument is a logical fallacy ( ad hominum ).

Often, he's right about things, and this is one of them. Sun is a hardware company, not a software company. they're trying to get the foss community do their software maintenance for them, so they can continue to sell their hardware. They're not, in this case, particapating as equal partners with the foss community ( any more than apple is ), they just want our help with their code.

your indian replacement thanks you...

[the-build-chicken]

...for your open source contributions that help him undercut your wage.

IBM understands it...you're not winning a war by IBM playing 'nice' with the opensource community. A company will do whatever is profitable. At the moment, IBM get's free code and great PR out of a few token gestures. They they outsource any actual development work to [insert current outsource country here] which use your freely given code to lower their development costs. RMS argues that there is enough money to be made in the service markets to sustain your wages...well, guess what...IBM has been making a pretty spectacular play for that service market for quite some time now...and it's taking your freely given software and using it to increase it's market penetration. Do you really think that 'small developer X' will be able to compete with IBM in the service market? But it's ok, RMS will be safe because he can always make a living on the tour circuit.

Brilliant strategy guys, see you in the soup kitchen line.

Re:your indian replacement thanks you...

[Ur@eus]

Anything else you want to blame on open source while your at it? World hunger? The asian tsunami? Religious bigotry?

Face it, the vast majority indian software developers are doing proprietary software development for US companies, not offering solutions based on open source software. The open source vs properietary software debate has very little to do with outsourcing.

That said outsourcing is not the big bad thing you like to paint it as. Economic growth in Asia hurts America as little as economic growth in Europe after WW2 did, in other words it do not hurt at all, in fact it a positive contribution.

Another dirty Sun trick.

[Anonymous Coward]

There it goes...I have been saying it all along. Sun has always been untrustworthy. Take NFS for example. Didn't they do that dirty trick of relasing the NFS specs only to sue everybody else that implemented the protocol? Or what about StarDivision? They bought out that poor company only to distribute its product under the dubious OpenOffice guise. And what about the dirty money they have dumped into Gnome and X.Org? Yet another trick to infiltrate the opensource community with patent ridden software! But with this disgusting CDDL (which was approved by that evil OSI -- obviously they got kickbacks) the cup has runeth over. It is clear that Sun is trying to infiltrate the open source community with their evil patents as they have done dozens of times before. So, I propose:

1)Everybody stop using NFS. If it comes from Sun, it can't be good.
2)Dump OpenOffice now! It is just another trojan horse of theirs.
3)Dump GNOME! Besides, when there is KDE, who needs it?
4)Dump X.Org. It has been touched by evil. Can't be too carefull with these matters.
5)Do not write applications using Java. Java is evil. There are god knows how many of these no-good Sun patents in there. Sun can pull the carpet under your feet at any time.
6)Burn every machine that has this dispicable Sun logo on it. It may infect your trustworthy intel and ibm servers which have served you so well in the past.

Re:Another dirty Sun trick.

[serbanp]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=sarcasm

Re:yes: RMS is nuts. no, he's not wrong this time

[RealAlaskan]

It's easy to ignore what he says, because he's obviously nuts. ...

Often, he's right about things, and this is one of them.

I'd say that he's obviously nuts, in the sense that Martin Luther King was obviously nuts: they both have a single issue that they care passionately about, to the exclusion of all other considerations.

Both were/are right. Both were personally offensive enough that some people are still unwilling to forgive them, or accept their positions.

Today, we know that, however offensive MLK and his followers may have been, the Dream in his ``I have a Dream'' speech was worthwhile. There are still way too many people who've never forgiven MLK for being unpopular, and for proving them wrong in their racism.

As time passes, it becomes more and more clear that RMS is dead on in most of his positions, and the people who say otherwise are beginning to open themselves up to comparisons with MLK's detractors, who are generally a nasty bunch.

Re:I'm Sorry...

[leomekenkamp]

I would not call a person who fights for the freedom of all people 'wacky'.

You lost me with the "now all code should be free without exceptions" bit.

Why? Does not everybody have a right to study and modify the software they run? In our lifetimes we will probably see direct neural interfaces between men and computers; do you want to connect your brain to a piece of software that only the manufacturer knows of what it does? Do you want to be told you cannot 'think' certain thoughts, because they have been patented? These are the things RMS keeps in mind! There is no compromise possible; a user should have certain rights to the code he is running. It's either that, or we might end up being Borg.

Just like you should have unlimited access to what is under the hood of your car, you should have access to what is under the gui of your applications.

Re:Am I the only one who thinks this is getting ol

[mooniejohnson]

You bring up a very good point. The same jokes keep getting modded up. Thank god the "Soviet Russia" jokes have been dying off, but it seems that new "jokes" are taking its place. The "Funny" mods should have some kind of "group check" system, so that every "Funny" point is agreed on by 3 or 4 mods. It'd make the really funny stuff stand out, and the lame jokes die off. Or so I hope.

Re:Am I the only one who thinks this is getting ol

[Richard_at_work]

Do you a little deal, we stop harping on about GNU/RMS when others on this forum stop using M$, Micro$soft or Windoze. Deal?

Super duper condensed:

[Megaweapon]

Sun: Hey y'all, here's some stuff and here's the license.

Open Source Community: The license does not sync with our philosophy. No thanks.

Free Software Community: This license is blasphemy in our collective holy eyes! Cast thee away from our presence!

Everyone walks away, life goes on.

Summary slightly misleading

[starseeker]

Mr. Stallman doesn't seem upset with Sun so much as with the whole problem of software patents (which is a much more sensible position.)

Let me say it again for those who won't read the article - IT DOESN'T MATTER whether or not Sun releases these patents. ANYBODY with a patent and no sense of ethics can do incalcuable damage to the free software movement. Even if sun broadened it's release to include all open source licenses, 1,600 is just a few leaves in a forest. And personally I wouldn't consider Sun's hands to be the most dangerous. Suppose Microsoft hires itself a few proxies with big patent portfoilos to sue every small to medium size open source project they can find, and all users they can track down? Sun's patent release doesn't do ANYTHING about that problem, and that is the real problem here.

Sun is unlikely to do anything so rash - they don't dominate the market and can't affort to become the next SCO in public relations. Microsoft can, and it can even more so afford for hired flunkie companies to be reviled.

Patents are far and away the most dangerous threat to open source software. But, to be a bit fatalistic, I think if the large corporations get serious about killing open source, nothing will save it. If nothing else, they could try to buy some laws making giving away software for free illegal, because it is unfair competition. The biggest problem with enemies is that they are your enemy. They will not stop until you are dead, and how you die is of no importance. The specifics don't matter - the fact someone wants you dead is enough to seal your fate unless you can either change their minds or force them to back off. I don't know how open source can do either, at least in the US, where money is everything.

And not for nothing but...

[Ayanami Rei]

It's kind of annoying that Sun decides that nearly EVERYTHING should be done through ifconfig. It's got about 4 different invocation types depending on what you're trying to do...

First you gotta plumb the interface. Then you might enable DHCP or BOOTP with it. Then you might use it to configure trunking or fail-over.

GAAAH.

Linux did one thing right with networking. Different commands that control different interfaces.
iwconfig handles wireless auth and behavior.
ifconfig handles address binding and state.
dhclient handles DHCP control.
some other kernel tools control trunking and packet shaping. etc.

Instead of one hideously long man page. (Shudder)

Re:I'm Sorry...

[AusG4]

Why? Does not everybody have a right to study and modify the software they run?

Not if it was written by someone else who allows you to use it with the explicit condition that you cannot study the source or modify it. Is it ideal that you can acquire these rights? Of course, but it shouldn't be mandatory.

Do you want to be told you cannot 'think' certain thoughts, because they have been patented?

Using Z to prove A never makes any sense. I know it's convienient to make this connection to argue that "all software should be free", but it's simply not the same thing.

There is no compromise possible; a user should have certain rights to the code he is running.

And if you demand this right, then acquire code to which you have the those rights... but don't acquire binaries you don't have the rights to and then turn around and complain about not having the code. That would be stupid. There will always be free code, no doubt, and if you choose to use it, do so.

The irony is that the open source movement argues "choice" at every turn... unless of course that choice is to not use open source software. "choice" is absolute, like the freedom to think what one wants, regardless of how you want to limit it by suggesting that such freedoms don't exist unless an OSI compliant license is attached to them.

Re:Am I the only one who thinks this is getting ol

[syousef]

"know the good man is a dork, now. Let's pay some attention to his points instead; some of them may be worth listening to and even have some importance."

Having lost touch with reality generally lowers your credibility considerably. I've had the interesting experience of meeting RMS once. His coding prowess speaks for itself but the man has the social skills of a gnat.

If something is said he doesn't agree with he won't debate it, he'll deny it. (I was the only person dressed in a suit at a programmer's society meeting he did his little saint speil at, since I'd just come from work. I asked how you answer when someone says GNU/Linux is not user friendly. He simply denied the problem existed, and tried to make me feel stupid for asking it. In other words his solution to user support is the classic RTFM. In any case, to him I was obviously someone evil in a suit).

In short this is not a man you want speaking as the advocate for your favourite cause. All he'll do is put people off side and do more harm than good. I have little time for him as a speaker and feel he should go back to coding, which he's very good at.

Re:Oh...

[eno2001]

Well, I used to dislike RMS when I first started moving over to Linux. (I used to be a Windows dork and a Mac user before that) I read some of the things he said and they didn't make sense to me. I thought he sounded kind of extreme in some of his views and very annoying in others. Since I especialy hate politics, I really didn't like the idea of his bringing politics into computing. But, after I started getting a real understanding that companies want to control what I do with my machine and the software and data on it, I began to see his point. So my anti-RMS stance started to change. As did my jokes and jabs at him. Sure, it's fun to make a joke every so often and I'm sure RMS would agree. Chances are that the mod who modded you down didn't agree. For what it's worth, if I had mod points I'd mod you up with +1 Funny. Either way, I think Stallman is to computing kind of like Giovanni Pierluigi De Palestrina is to music. Not likely to be a houseold name at any point in time, but probably one of the more important people in computing of all time. And just like the musically inclined people who know who De Palestrina was, the people who understand and are aware of RMS and his position are less likely to want to joke about it.

Re:Who is on board?

[Bruce Perens]

I am on enough boards, thank you. If Sun chooses an outsider it would probably be Brian Behlendorf, who has been their contractor through collab.net for a long time. Or they could choose Danise Cooper from inside.

Bruce

Re:Is this really news?

[mrchaotica]

Yes, I have -- I'm a particularly big fan of The Right to Read. In fact, I'm a pretty big fan of RMS himself, and agree wholeheartedly with most of his ideas. So I wasn't complaining about RMS just now -- far from it! I was trying to restate what the parent said, except without bashing him.

As far as supporting other licenses, it seemed to me like he complained about all of them because I was looking at http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/philosophy.html#TOCL icensingFreeSoftware last night, and based on that he really does seem to complain about all non-GPL licenses. Look at the [partial] list:

• Why You Should Not Use the Library GPL for Your Next Library
• The X Window's Trap
• The Problems of the Apple License
• The BSD License Problem
• The Netscape Public License Has Serious Problems
• The Problems of the Plan 9 License
• The New Motif License
• Free But Shackled - The Java Trap

Each of those articles is complaining about a different license, up to and including the LGPL! Considering that that list comprises almost all Free Software/Open Source licenses around (except Apache, MIT, and Artistic, as far as I can tell), I was just saying that it's pretty darn likely that any new license would make that list too.

Sigh again

[A nonymous Coward]

Who here is sick and tired of companies taking something made by others and proclaiming it as their own?

Who here is sick and tired of companies lying about what they release to the public in order to hoodwink fanboys?

Aside from those, I personally am sick and tired of so-called intellectual property. Patents and copyrights have become so abused that we have reached the point where the goal of stimulating the economy would be better served by getting rid of copyrights and patents altogether.

Re:Sigh again

[Leo McGarry]

I'm sorry that the freedom to own property annoys you. Personally, I'm fucking pissed off about the freedom of speech. I think that idiots who can't tell the difference between right and wrong should just shut the hell up, right now.

But the difference between you and me is that I'm not calling for the abolition of the freedom of speech, or denying that it ever existed in the first place.

Re:Sigh again

[Ogerman]

I'm sorry that the freedom to own property annoys you.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental freedom which the government cannot take away because it was never "granted" in the first place. It simply exists as a basic, inalienable human right. The body of law, which only recently became in vogue among lawyers to call "intellectual property," is a limited granted privilege. The US Constitution gives Congress the power to create such laws, but it does not require it to nor does it claim that copyright, patent, or trademark are fundamental rights. Fifty years from now, if Congress decided to completely abolish copyright and the patent system, this would be perfectly constitutional.

The Constitution also requires that such laws be used by Congress "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." So if the application of copyright or patent in a particular field does not achieve this goal, by definition that application is unconstitutional. There are very good arguments why software patents fall into this category and therefore should be abolished.

If you've ever read the writings of the founding fathers of the US, you would very quickly realize that they would never have agreed to use the term "intellectual property" because this is, in fact, a misnomer.

Consider the philosophy of this situation: An inventor in the US and an inventor in Japan come up with the exact same idea completely independently. But suppose the Japanese inventor had the idea 1 month before the US inventor. Who actually owns the idea? Obviously neither of them. It's just an idea that both inventors happened to have, most likely because it was the logical "next step" of innovation. However, if the US inventor publically disclosed the idea using a patent application before the Japanese inventor could get around to it, the US inventor would be granted the patent. This sort of thing happens all the time. See why the term "intellectual property" doesn't quite fit the subject matter?

Re:Unreasonable and misleading generalization.

[RealAlaskan]

But you can't generalise from that to arguing that because many (or most) of his positions are correct, all of them are correct.

I re-read my post, and I'm pretty sure I didn't make that generalization. Quoting myself:

As time passes, it becomes more and more clear that RMS is dead on in most [emphasis added] of his positions, and the people who say otherwise are beginning to open themselves up to comparisons with MLK's detractors ...

And it's not fair, reasonable, or useful to imply that people who disagree with him are doing so because of his behaviour.

I have to admit I didn't make myself clear on this one. I meant that people attack him personally because they don't like what he stands for, just as modern-day closet racists attack MLK's (admittedly imperfect) character, because that's safer than attacking his policies directly.

Yes, reasonable people can disagree on the correct level of legal protection for ideas. Those reasonable people aren't calling him a whacked-out paranoid communist zealot on slashdot. People who try to make sensible arguments against the man's positions aren't included in that condemnation.

Disliking RMS doesn't make you evil, or a racist, but making that dislike your only argument for attacking his positions seems adequate qualifications for being considered a big fool or worse.

RMS is on to something..

[Steeltoe]

To properly understand people, it's crucial to see where they're coming from, not brand them as crazy, that's just an easy way to opt out of understanding. I think people misunderstand RMS' goals with the GPL.

RMS wants to do away with copyright and all "Intellectual Property-rights" entirely. He does not want to force everyone to use the GPL, but he created the GPL, "copyleft" as an answer to copyright: Since Free Software cannot legally obtain source or dumps from proprietary software, there was a need for a license that allowed everything to be shared. Except to proprietary software, since they're restricting sharing unnaturally. How else would Free Software be able to compete against copyright? It's an ironical stab at copyright.

When RMS started, he was laughed at. Nobody believed quality software could be made by people in their spare time. Leaders of corporations thought that making something like a UNIX OS would be impossible for others to achieve, but forgot it's us, human beings , who really created the software in the first place. Now, we're seeing Free Software is ahead in some respects, and is slowly overtaking proprietary solutions and making them uncomfortable.

RMS doesn't live in his own world, he sees the illusion our society is building its card-house on. He sees "IP-rights" as unnatural: It is natural to share information. With the advent of free cost copying and distribution of information (The Internet), we as a society now have roughly two choices:

1) Implement more and more draconian laws to conserve our social structure as it is now. Only the elite will be able to produce and invent, while the poor becomes poorer both in monetary riches and knowledge - one of the ways to oppress people. There's no way to prevent the freedom of information, except to create higher and higher barriers between every entity in this world: nations, cities, communities, institutions, neighbours, family, your own brain. Yes, it becomes ludicrous at a point, but at that point, who can stop it? When you've already lost touch with your community, nobody is on your side anymore.

A way to do this, is to create an artificial war against an abstract enemy, thus making people think they need these laws for protection. Even though more people die in car-accidents each year, than to this fictious enemy.

Back to point #2:

2) Another approach is to create a natural abundant society where people collaborate and contribute to the whole. Free Software is only the beginning, and has already proven its more efficient, flexible and reusable than proprietary solutions. Technology will slowly eliminate limitations and create abundance. In such a society, work will be more like play than the hour-wrecking, time-stretching, guilt-ridden, manipulative, forced labour we have today. Why are we waiting for the clock to turn 4-5 if there's not more work to be done that day? In fact, most of the population will not be required to "work" at all, and what work exist can be done taking turns on it. It requires a mature society that will take care of all its inhabitants. Like it or not: socialism, though just like in Europe not everybody need be treated equally.

The GPL is not forcing anybody to do anything. Copyright and so called "Intellectual Property-rights" are forcing people, and is the enemy to a natural progression towards an abundant society.

Abundance or not, is really a state of mind. Some people want to create a future of everlasting feeling of lack. You need more, and more, and in order to get it you have to do what they tell you to do. No matter how advanced technologically we get, we will never be happy, we will be slaves to emotions being manipulated by a paranoid society - our spirit crushed or perverted into material goal-chasing.

I want to live in a mature, natural and abundant society, don't you?

Ask yourself, who is working against the natural progression of evolution,