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India Eyeing Its Own Open Source Licence
Guru Goo writes "Deepak Phatak of the Indian Institute of Technology,Mumbai has begun an effort to create an open-source license that will let programmers share ideas while also letting them retain the rights to their own software modifications.The license will likely function much like the Berkeley Software Distribution or the
MIT License programs, he added. The number of open-source licenses has exploded, leaving many in the community miffed. But Phatak's proposal comes with the power of numbers. India's 1,750 colleges with computer science and electrical engineering degrees admit about 250,000 students a year. Combined with the outsourcing boom, that makes India one of the major centers for software development.
While the collaboration between academia and industry in india is not as pervasive as in the U.S., it is growing."
The number of open-source licenses has exploded, leaving many in the community miffed.
Why don't they just pick one? How does entering another license into the fray solve the problem with there being too many?
Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
Is this proof that the US legal risk is actually putting extra burden on US-based institutions (including corporations and universities)????
What need is it, exactly, that india requires that isn't met by the GNU or BSD licenses?
What's next? AmericanNationalLicense? BritishNationalLicense?
This can only be a bad thing.
They already have an Out Sourcing license.
A recent visitor to Phatak's office was Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie. "I told him a competitive price point (for a desktop OS) would be in the single digit dollars," Phatak said.
Would that digit have been 0 by any chance?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
having a license that are splitted into sections?
this program follows "free use" and "free distribute" section of abc license
this way, there can be ONE license and everyone can taylor a license of their needs from sections of the license
I am harvesting funny/good quotes. Please help by putting them in your sigs
Actually "Phatak" is one of the ways in which Indians describe the sound of an explosion, i.e. it's essentially "Boom!" in Hindi.
That answers my previous post; but still, why not use something like the apache license (which, correct me if I'm wrong, includes patent protection) or the CDDL?
and harmoniously."
/.er...
"Dr. Phatak's dream is to see a resurgent India catching up with the world using Information Technology as the spring board. He hopes to make IT work for the millions of Indians so as to enable them to lead an honorable, comfortable and peaceful life full of love and harmony."
But best of all, under P^2's 'hobbies':
" Giving unsolicited advice to unsuspecting individuals and groups."
He's a natural
The number of open-source licenses has exploded, leaving many in the community miffed
Is there an "Open Source license-picking wizard" anywhere?
Remember the old mainframe(?) "animals" game in which you pick an animal, and it would keep asking you questions to differentiate between two types, until it guessed your animal, or didn't have your animal in it's list? (actually it was a binary tree)
We could use one of those. It keeps asking us questions, one at a time, until there is only one license that matches our selections. Any new license can be added to the tree at any time by creating a question that differentiates it from the license you would otherwise get by answering the questions for it.
- bp
bp
The LGPL has been especially created to be used in commercial programs where the source could not be given but a library could be used externally (by using headers and libs files only).
Actually in a way, I rather envy these up and coming third world states as they begin to make their presence felt. They have few advantages in the global economy, but its like the Russians; they had the best mathemeticians in the world because all you needed to learn it was a pen and paper. Well all you need to learn software, graphic design, or any of the many related fields is a computer, and they are getting cheaper by the week.
These countries have a chance to learn from the mistakes made by the western world (in particular America and its crippling IP laws), so I wouldn't call it a process of catching up, more a process of cherry picking the best ideas and choosing their own divergent path.
I expect the next large IT advances to come from places like India - once it becomes obvious to them that they have a clear run at parity, with much more advanced nations, they will invest many more of their resources into it. In fact, unhindered by IP law, they may well become vastly superior in terms of IT.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
- Phatak is not India. He's a professor in one college in India.
- This is not a massively-funded government project. It's one person trying to design a license agreeement, for God's sake. Anyone can do that without implying a nuclear-weapon-like government strategic program. If a professor in, say, OSU was to design a new license, would Slashdot run a story saying "America designing its own Open Source license"?
- I know Phatak. He's a good teacher, but tends to like thinking up grand visions, and sees himself as some kind of leading light carrying India to leadership and glory in the tech world. Not many people other than him see him that way. No reasonable journalist would report his statements/plans as representing what 'India' is doing.
Nothing like compiling your free-as-in-speech and free-as-in-beer software with an IPA.
Er, um, doesn't the GPL already do this??? You don't have the rights to -- say -- close-source the entire code, but you can do whatever you want with your own code.
If, on the other hand, he wants to go with a berkely-style license, then please go with the berkeley style. I'm one of those who believes that we already have enough licenses. I'm wondering if Phatak fully understands the licenses that are already out there?
If what he wants is a "look but don't touch" license (a'la some of MS's 'shared source" initiatives) then I'd be inclined to say "thanks but no thanks".
Perhaps the OSI should require people who want to propose yet another Open Source license to show cause why the new license provides something valuable beyond the already existing set.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
...licensing program that will let programmers share ideas with one another while at the same time allowing them to retain the rights to their own software modifications.
/. minions as to why and how.
<rant>
You mean just like almost every other OSI-certified license? Hey, I wrote this code that is a modification to X. I am licensing under license Y. But guess what! I still own my code. I still hold the copyright. Unless you're working with someone who requires any contributions to their code have copyright assigned back to them, you always retain your rights to do whatever you damn well please with your code. All the license does is give other people the same rights I have with some (more or less) restrictions that I, as owner of the code, don't have to follow.
Like, say, there's this project that is dual-licensed under the GPL gratis and a proprietary/closed-source license for a fee...then I can write this additional module of functionality that tacks onto it. I, as owner of the code, can then decide to keep it to myself and not worry about the GPL (because it only kicks in if I distribute), or I can choose to release my code under the GPL (which does not give the project "principle" the right to include it in the proprietary/closed-source license) OR I can do exactly what the other folks are doing: release my modifications gratis (or for a fee if I want to...not that I'd collect much from anybody because the first person who paid could turn around and release it gratis) under the GPL and license it back to the project principle under the proprietary/closed-source license gratis or for a fee if I so choose.
I have all these options because I retain my rights to the code I write, period.
Now, what it strikes me as this guy wants to make something somewhere between the GPL and BSD licenses. A little less scary to PHBs (see: GPL) and a little less scary to developers who believe in "share and share a like" (see: BSD). I just don't know enough about the myriad of other licenses out there to know if something like that already exists...although I suspect it does.
</rant>
Of course, I'm probably way off base and will be undoubtedly regaled by many of the
Except it says "sir" and "humbly" a lot more.
We have far too many as it is. Why would India need its own? Are no existing ones good enough?
Psi Xi
You are in a maze of twisty little licenses, all subtly different.
Chip H.
..but while I was browsing the IIT site ..i came across this. Seems like they've cornered the CEO/CTO market ;)
kamara
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Depending upon the way you pronounce it, "phatak" could mean boom or gate.
If pronunciation is "phutaak", meaning is boom,
if pron. is "phaatuck", meaning is gate.
Well, this is rather offtopic, but to partly answer to the subject question and JFTR: also here in Italy it's quite common to make jokes about the american "tendency to sue anybody for anything", which is tipically regarded as a bad faith way to make money from someone instead of a way to obtain legal equity.
(Not that in Italy the justice system doesn't have its own problems, to be fair, especially regarding excessive duration of legal proceedings.)
Ind: We are having our own open source license now.
Pak: So you think you are big shots with your own open source license now?
Ind: We are super-power. Of course we have Open Source licenses! When will you get computers in your third world country?
Pak: We have computers and many other things. You do not know about us, because your people live in shacks and answer the telephone for Americans.
Ind: Better to live in a shack and have a high-paying technical job than to eat cows and live in huts as your peasants do!
Pak: We will blow you up! Where will your Untouchables beg after that will happen?
Ind: We don't have those old social problems! We are advanced nation with 3D satellites and Open Source licenses, while your people live in huts eating the flesh of dead things.
Pak: We will still blow you up! All your base are belong to us!
I can't stand it when people make agreements between each other that aren't exactly as specified by one of The Holy Documents Of The Universal Community of Right-Minded Believers (i.e. Sanctus Codex Catholic Orthodox).
But, if they're going to write new licenses, can they at least write them in English, or at least in something with a Latin alphabet.
Here, literally, Phatak means "Gate", typically attached to fence. Deepak means "Lamp". Given these, it could be your gateway to illumination.
While the spirit of the BSD license is refreshing, the unfortunate reality is that this license represents a one-way trip from the coder to industry, at no cost to industry.
Why do you think Ballmer stated Microsoft's relative affinity for OpenBSD some time ago?
In practice corporate collaboration on campus means little more than extremely low cost labor for the corporation.
It sounds to me like this person doesn't particularly mind the work produced by these students being absorbed by corporate interests.
That's quite a sentiment for somebody supposedly thinking about the advancement of an economy.
It reads more like a paid shill for industry working for the subjugation of an entire generation of students.
---
No Clever Sig At This Time
Food!
The 'f' in wtf stands for food.
The English name for Mumbai is, of course, Bombay. Just like the English name for Muenchen is Munich and the French name for London is Londres.
Well what do you want us to do for you then?
It's your country, you sort it out.
Great... all we need is even *more* confusion. It's already hard enough to try to figure out if you're going to get a mob of angry nerds with torches and PDAs storming your doors... it's only going to get worse.
hawk
Its obviously a stupid idea to create another license just so contributors can keep their modifications. They already can do that! And it doesn't matter that India has 250,000 students (of which how many are writing any open source code that matters?), because if the students understand open source, and if the teachers do, they can still and probably will still release their software under GPL or BSD.
Thats the beautiful thing about open source, just as the community must maintain code for the code to thrive, the community must maintain the license as well. So just because some blowhard gets it in their head that no existing license could address their specific problem, and thus they need to create a new one, the community doesn't have to use their license. Thats even if OSI decides to certify it.
This is why I love open source so much. The community will solve this issue, it will weed these losers out. No congressional act needed, no changing of the rules, it didn't even take me wasting 15 minutes of work time to type it up. This is how it should be done.
Matter of fact, the more I think about this story, the less it matters. I'm going back to work.
http://www.haxwell.org
One of the things that many people fail to mention. India is indeed pumping out these vast quantities of highly qualified people. The down side is that even if the industry grows at a massive rate and outsourcing continues there is no way that the world economy can sustain these new people joining the market every month. There is very little written about that aspect of the indian graduates.
D &to=INR&amt=1&t=2y
One of the issues that has increased the speed of out sourcing is that the indian rupee has dropped significantly against the US dollar in recent years. When it starts to rise again the cost of outsourcing and employing people in india will increase that could have both possitive and negative aspects on the sectors in question.
Indian Currency here : http://finance.yahoo.com/currency/convert?from=US
GPL is the hobby and leisure of rich people who can afford to be charitable - after all RMS gets paid more for 1 talk than 1 Indian programmer makes all year and needs to feed a family of 4/6. RMS can get a roof over his head anyday even if he doesn't make money. Poor old Rajeev from Bombay stands in the rain if he's not paid for his programming skills (India doesn't have any safety nets for unemployed people).
Going BSD gives India a way to get a leg up on Western programmers. India doesn't have to share its IP with China or any other up and coming offshore programming outfit and shit that's the ONLY thing India got going.
But Phatak's proposal comes with the power of numbers. India's 1,750 colleges with computer science and electrical engineering degrees admit about 250,000 students a year. But if everyone is going to follow the new license and not release anything what benefit will there be for anyone else?
The AC was the troll. The place where the "scenario comes into being" is the remainder of Section 5 of the LGPL. The AC at the top of this thread took one paragraph out of section 5 and displayed it out of context, giving a much different impression of its purpose than if it was taken as part of the whole. Specifically, the AC removed all the parts of section 5 that countered his main argument.
Here's the whole of section 5:
A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library, but is designed to work with the Library by being compiled or linked with it, is called a "work that uses the Library". Such a work, in isolation, is not a derivative work of the Library, and therefore falls outside the scope of this License.
However, linking a "work that uses the Library" with the Library creates an executable that is a derivative of the Library (because it contains portions of the Library), rather than a "work that uses the library". The executable is therefore covered by this License. Section 6 states terms for distribution of such executables.
When a "work that uses the Library" uses material from a header file that is part of the Library, the object code for the work may be a derivative work of the Library even though the source code is not. Whether this is true is especially significant if the work can be linked without the Library, or if the work is itself a library. The threshold for this to be true is not precisely defined by law.
If such an object file uses only numerical parameters, data structure layouts and accessors, and small macros and small inline functions (ten lines or less in length), then the use of the object file is unrestricted, regardless of whether it is legally a derivative work. (Executables containing this object code plus portions of the Library will still fall under Section 6.)
Otherwise, if the work is a derivative of the Library, you may distribute the object code for the work under the terms of Section 6. Any executables containing that work also fall under Section 6, whether or not they are linked directly with the Library itself.
Here's my translation:
1. If the program that uses the library is dynamically linked with it, it is not a derivative work and it can be distributed any way you want.
2. If the program that uses the library is statically linked with it, the executable is a derivative work but not the source code.
3. It is understood that #include statements in C literally brings in code from the header files into the executable, so therefore technically there is LGPL code in the executable of dynamically linked executables. (This was the part that was taken out of context.)
4. However, if the #included LGPL code is nothing more than basic header stuff like struct definitions, constants, #defines, and the like, then a dynamically linked executable is excused from being considered a derivative work. (This was the part that was convienantly excluded that completed negated the AC's point.)
5. If someone decided to #include some code that actually does real work (i.e. #include "majorfunctions.c") then that is being naughty and the resulting executable is a deriviative work.
The
I hate reponding to my own posts. I said the "AC" was wrong. However, I failed to realize that BOTH parties were ACs. I meant the AC at the top of this thread.
The
... just exactly what is the point of the LGPL versus the GPL? It seems the essence of your argument points to the two licenses being effectively the same animal
..." could be interpreted to mean that including a header file into your project violates this. You are assuming this is not the case. I'll agree that this would be against the general understanding of the intent of the LGPL but how does the license define this? If it does not then a project's source is at the mercy of a court ruling that does clarify this issue?
You are effectively arguing that the original poster must be wrong because the *intent* is something else. *Intent* means nothing, only the implementation specified in the license matters.
To me the first line of section 5 contradicts the argument the parent poster wanted to make.
You may simply misunderstand it. "A program that contains no derivative of any portion of the Library
FWIW, I'm not arguing against the GPL or LGPL. What I'm arguing against is accepting conventional wisdom, intent, etc. If you want to use the LGPL and not release your source have your lawyer read the LGPL and provide you with advice.
Choose any given licence for your code and you will grant certain rights, lets say A, to those who use your code and you will be denying other rights, say B, similarly. You've just ruled out your using anyone else's code requiring you to license works built on their code such that at least one right in B is included.
The other side, as you said, is that you can choose which software you want to use, but in so doing, you've limited your relicensing terms to those in agreement with the relicense requirements of the original code's license.
1. All your codes are belong to us
2. All your jobs are belong to us
3. Let the hiliarity ensue
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
None of them seem to have a clue that a world exists outside of their campuses, and that world if full of greedy capitalists.
The beauty of the GPL as opposed to BSD or MIT schemes is that it uses existing copyright laws to ensure that programmers can actually be recognized properly for the code they create.
This means a lot more than having the respect of your peers. It means being able to feed your family.
Of course, GPL won't enable you to make money in and of itself, but it prevents others from directly exploiting you. You hear a lot of whining about loss of freedom in today's world, but I will truely be frightened the day a GPL case is lost in a Supreme Court somewhere. It's that important.
Open Source ideas outside of the GPL are not practical if you lack the massive finacial support of an institution. They do have their place though, I guess.
Everywhere has excessive duration of legal proceedings. If we weren't ruled by lawyers the legal system would have been streamlined a long time ago.
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
Take the old BSD license. A completely reasonable license, with a small attribution to the author.Take the GPL license. A completely reasonable license, where you have to distribute the code with the binary by design.
Now, pretend you want make an OSS project, and you're license-neutral really. You can choose code from one, but not the other. That is completely unreasonable and silly, but legally so. It was never intended to split OSS into many different code bases, with duplication of effort. If anything, OSS has been famous for "standing on shoulders of giants".
Now say you have 100 licenses, does that help? Not at all. If your code is license-compatible, you grant at least those rights anyway so you really have a "lower bound". Pick the "most free" standard license that fits your criteria, and you should be set.
The real problem we're facing today are licenses that allow no additional restrictions - primarily the GPL. For a program that in any way uses GPL-licensed code, it is impossible to move to a license with a patent clause or which will help you recover code in an ASP model. There's no problem having MIT/LGPL code in a GPL project. But as far as I can tell, you can have *no* LGPL/GPLv2 code in a GPLv3 project (or any other license which has similar restrictions).
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
If I want to leverage feature A from OSS license type X code and merge it with feature B from OSS license type Y code, there is a chance that X and Y may be mutually exclusive licensing terms.
The more license types there are, the greater the likelyhood that licenses will come into conflict. And then, the only people that will benefit will be lawyers.
"Never" is a long time. Lots of companies and people make money with OSS, and nothing's going to change that.
As I understand it from a former collegue who had written several technical book, US copyright laws are ignored in India. He was forced to sell his books there at an almost non-existant profit, because if the didn't agree, they'd print them anyway and not pay him anything!
So excuse me if I don't care about India's licensing schemes. They sure don't seem to care about ours!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai
The appellation Mumbai is an eponym, etymologically derived from Mumba -- the name of the local Hindu goddess Mumbadevi, and Aai -- meaning mother in Marathi. In the 16th century, the Portuguese named the area Bom Bahia which means Good Bay. This was later corrupted to Bomaím or Bombaim, by which name it's still known in Portuguese, and after the British gained possession, it was anglicised to Bombay. The name was officially changed from Bombay to Mumbai in 1995, but the former name is still popularly used in the West and by many of the city's inhabitants and famous institutions.
While we're at it, for the record a similar name change (Calcutta -> Kolkata) : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcutta
Or Madras -> Chennai, which annoys the Tamils and Telugus I work with to no end...
In this thread, CNet is spinning the topic to focus on the open source movement, not the free software movement. There are differences between the movements and, while members of them work together in practical projects, the two movements are quite different philosophically. One of those differences has to do with discussing freedoms at all (the open source movement was designed not to discuss freedom, but the free software movement focuses on it) and another difference in practice concerns the preservation of freedoms in derivative works (the open source movement makes no difference between what the free software movement calls "copylefted" and "non-copylefted" licenses).
Please do cite where you would get this misinformation, because it has never been true and for a very good reason: "choice" is a way to railroad someone into losing their freedom. The free software movement is about giving all computer users the freedom to share and modify computer software. Choice is an argument that might appear to tend toward that end, but is actually quite different.
Some time ago, three graphical web browsers were the most popular web browsers around: Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, and Opera. Since there are at least two browsers in the set, choice is satisified. But software freedom is not satisfied at all because all of those browsers are proprietary software; none of these programs give you all of the freedoms of free software.
Today, Firefox is increasingly popular, but it is being pitched by the Mozilla Foundation on this weaker argument of "choice". Software freedom is a better argument which goes unmentioned by the Mozilla Foundation because they choose to follow the open source movement. The advantage to them is that if they ever want to make Firefox into a non-free browser, they can do so without altering their argument on why one should choose Firefox. Free software advocates, however, would lose interest in Firefox if it became non-free.
Digital Citizen
which requires any relevant "phat props" be kept around in a notices file.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
Glad you mentioned that one, as that change is hard for me to remember! Must be since I haven't been there. (yet?) :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chennai
Sadly the others bring memorable smog to mind more than anything else.
Fascinating cities, but I dearly hope they figure out how to combat the pollution soon. They'd be so much more enjoyable if one could just breathe. It's tragic presently.
BSD licenses are great, but they don't work for everyone. There's a good comparison of the different licences at the zesiger license page: Zesiger License
Here's the quick version, copied from the website:
The Zesiger License aims to fill the gap between the GPL and the BSDL, by combining the best features of both, which are briefly listed below:
The GNU General Public License (GPL)The GPL is by far the most popular, and one of the most debilitatingly restrictive of the open source licenses. It's occasionally used for open source versions of commercial software, since it allows companies to release source code to their customers, without allowing them to use the code in competing products.
- Does not permit incorporating into proprietary products
- Stifles innovation by making improving products unprofitable
- Ensures derivative works will also be open source
- Prevents commercial competitors from using your sources
The BSD LicenseThe BSDL is an excellent license for hobby-type projects that hope to attract the attention of a business that might want to commercialize it. It's less popular than the GPL, but it's the least restrictive of the ones compared here. It's almost entirely unsuitable for commercial software though, since it relinquishes nearly all rights - It does nothing to protect commercial interests.
- Permits incorporating into proprietary products
- Encourages innovation by making improving products potentially profitable
- Does not ensure that derivative works will also be open source
- Does not prevent commercial competitors from using your sources
The Zesiger LicenseThis license has the best features of the BSD and GPL licenses rolled into one. Open source projects released under this license will remain open source, while still providing ample time for innovators to keep their improvements proprietary until they are rewarded for their work.
The intent statements are interesting too:
Intent of Paragraph One:
To give enough rights to innovators that they may profit from improvements that they make to open source products, while ensuring that their work eventually becomes available to other innovators, so they are able to do the same, for the benefit of the end-users.
Intent of Paragraph Two:To ensure that no court or other politically influenced body shall ever have any authority over the products released under this license.
Intent of Paragraph Three:To prevent the rapid changes in laws from having any meaning to the innovators and end-users of products released under this license.
Hopefully this new Indian license will try to protect the nature of open source while freeing people to do as they please with it the way the Zesiger License tries to.
The Zesiger License already does this. From the FAQ:
Q: Why are there no indemnification clauses, or limitations of warranty in this license? How come this license doesn't require credits to be given? Why are basic features of other licenses completely left out?This license is intended only to serve the purposes enumerated in paragraph one, it's not designed to do anything else. Not everyone needs or wants all the features of other licenses - For example, there may be a fine company someday that offers warranties for it's software.
Q: What if I really need the extra features included in those other licenses? Is there some way to add those features to the Zesiger License?Yes, you may add whatever clauses you feel is necessary to supplement this license, even if you were not the original producer of the work. However, you may not change the license itself, and you will have to accept the fact that subsequent licensees may want to add their own clauses.
Q: Being able to add clauses to this license will make it really easy for me to customize it, but what if some of my customizations are incompatible with the customizations other people make to the license?If a conflict arises, hopefully the parties involved will resolve it themselves. If not, Zesiger Inc. will arbitrate the disagreement and deliver a verdict that best preserves the intent of the license. This license can handle any negative situation that arises, while still giving the users of the license as much freedom as they need to make it work in the wide variety of circumstances that could exist in a commercial or non-profit enterprise.
I saw this IIT professor speaking at a Linux meet. He does not know how to pronounce Linux; He does not know how open source projects work; He does not know that MySQL can be embedded in open source application. I dunno what he knows, except being a windbag.
Thank you for taking the time to point out the missing information.
I saw this IIT professor speaking at a Linux meet. He does not know how to pronounce Linux; He does not know how open source projects work; He does not know that MySQL can be embedded in open source application. I dunno what he knows, except being a windbag.
I am sure you got those (MySQL, OS, Linux) wrong, considering the fact that I took one of his courses.
I bet, Phatak will contribute more to open source than you.
Its not good to discredit/flaim some one on internet without concrete evidence. Could you let us know as to how come Phatak is a windbag.
This is why I always recommend the GPL when possible. Some people have minor issues with it, but essentially, it's a good license, and it has more legal clout behind it than most of the others combined. The only other software license I would consider right now is the Afferro GPL, which covers use on websites.
You're right: there usually is none. I guess some people just feel more secure with something they made themselves. Which is silly, and even in direct contradiction to what they're about to do: share software development. If you can share the development of complex software, why not define and share a single, well-written legal document?
In this particular case though, we may see a reason yet: some people in governments may think it best to limit the sharing of software to their own country's citizens, or to add some form of workflow restriction across borders. I think they would be very mistaken to do so, but I'm expecting to see it sooner or later. Of course, I wouldn't call such a license Open Source, and certainly not Free Software.