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GPL 3 May Require Websites to Relinquish Code
Vicissidude writes "At present, companies that distribute GPL-licensed software must make the source code publicly available, including any modifications they've made. Though the rule covers many businesses that use GPL-licensed software for commercial ends, it doesn't cover Web companies that use such software to offer their services through the Web, as they're not actually distributing the software.
GPL 3, the next version of the free software license, a draft of which is expected to be released in early 2006, may close this loophole, GPL author and Free Software Foundation head Richard Stallman said in an interview."
Sounds like a sane byproduct of a sanely limited feature of the license to me.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
If they want to stick with their own GPL2 fork, they can still keep it locked up.
And we've known this for how long? Granted, the story itself isn't a dupe (afaik), but every article on the GPL3 in the past few months has mentioned the idea of websites running GPL software being required to release their source code by some means. It's hardly news.
That might make life interesting for Google (and probably Yahoo) as I'd bet a large chunk of googles operations are based on FOSS code including their clustering software, mail etc.
While I can see the point of making distributors in the conventional sense having to release the source I've a nasty feeling making web service companies reveal their source might only harm the OSS movement in the longer term... Google might be Okay as they've got the bandwidth to be able to release the source code for all OSS code used internally but not sure about the smaller providers...
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
I'm no expert but wouldn't it be more likely that they would stick with their previous code that only has the V2 license attached? Whats forcing them to upgrade?
There is a very strong "gimme gimme" theme that runs deep within the GPL community. It says, give me the source code you have because I want it. The GPL, in fact, guarantees that if GPL'd software is used in another product, both products then become infected by the GPL and the resulting work is then covered by the GPL. In a very logical sense, this makes a lot of sense. We want people who use our work (GPL'd) to also be compelled to give back their work. The payment we demand is not monetary, it is to be paid in sourcecode.
So the loophole exists that someone may be able to make available a software package through an interface like the web which does not export the actual software to the client. The application, though, is absolutely in use by the client, he just can't see the source code. The user can't even request the source code (which the GPL forces the distributor to release to the asker). This is way outside the theme of the GPL, and it is not what the GPL writers had in mind when they originally (and revisedly) wrote it. The user should have the freedom to read, learn from, and change the code to the products he uses, that is the spirit of the GPL. By hiding the code and program behind the safety of a webserver, the companies exporting the application via the web interface are restricting the users' ability to do those things.
I don't support Stallman in this. I think it is absolutely the right of these companies to do this sort of thing. And I think that changing the GPL to include such egregious usurpation of rights is a blow to Free Software, both spiritually and tangibly as we will see more people decide to either stick with GPL2.0 or go with a more lenient license.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
...to the following questions:
What can we do to make sure that for profit enterprises won't ever consider using GPL3 code in any projects?
How can we best add legitimacy to Microsoft's FUD about the GPL?
I have a feeling this will do more harm than good to F/OSS usage out there.
I can't really codify my feelings into words since my examples are all licensed under something OTHER than the GPL (apache,php) but I think everyone sees where this would stiffle GPL-based software growth.
It's like saying that anyone who uses foo shopping cart (licensed under the GPL) to sell t-shirts online must now release any code changes they make to foo shopping cart just because the business uses it to sell t-shirts.
This has been the biggest FUD from Microsoft for the longest time. You shouldn't write an application to run on Linux because you'll be forced to give your code away! With this type of change, that might become fact rather than fud.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
The zdnet article is just a rehash of the onlamp interview with Stallman that has recently been on /.:3 .html0 9/24/1325214&tid=117&tid=156
/. blurb to this story or the zdnet article want to make you believe.
/.
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/09/22/gpl
http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/
Needless to say that you should read the actual interview, as things are a bit more complex than what the
Well done
This is what RMS actually said:
This inteview is also discussed on OSNews.
Windows users:
Internet Explorer is obsolete. Please upgrade to Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
Your example is exactly where I was trying to go in my own post.
If I build a business around hosted virus scanning and the backend runs postfix,clam-av and mysql (which I've written all the gluecode myself), why the hell should I be forced to give up that glue code? I'm not selling the software, I'm selling a service, which is what they've been telling us should be the business model all along.
Someone may argue that, since I'm selling a service, I should have no problem with giving up the code but I say to those people "Why? I took and glued together three disparate products to build my solution. I'm not selling the software package to anyone, I'm keeping it internal. My development of the glue is my edge."
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
I think that's only partially true. As I understand it, the derivative software will only have to allow the source code to be accessed if the original did as well. In other words, if google creates UltraSearch.com and licenses it as GPL3 AND includes a mechansism to download the source, then anyone who creates a derivative work would have to retain that mechanism or a comparable one. But if google had kept their sources private, then anyone who created a derivative work would presumably be allowed to keep their source private too. Of course, this is all confined to web-apps. Any software that is actually distributed will still have all the normal GPL conditions applying to it.
If I have an (otherwise proprietary) web application that makes a call to a GPL3'd grep command then I'd have to distribute grep to people if they asked. That sounds silly and unnecessarily burdensome and would create the sort of administrative overhead that would push people to a non-free solution.
However the mechanism Richard Mentions: seems vastly more sane. GPL3'd applications that aren't web-apps won't suddenly require distribution if they are used in a web-app, only applications coded with such use and distribution in mind will.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
So it's not a feature that applies to apache, the kernel or anything other than the web application itself. It's not retro-active; the developer has to add it to a newly released version and if you don't like it then continue developing the existing version without it.
This will be great for things with an MIT/Berkeley license (e.g. *BSD). The license allows you to do with the code as you please (as long as you preserve the Copyright notice) and hold the author harmless.
That's really simple.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about the GPL, even among people who like it a lot. The simplicity of the MIT license makes it a no-brainer.
Also, there is some question as to whether or not the GPL is a contract or not. There is the possibility that someone could "take back' the license. As there is no apparent consideration (e.g. you didn't pay for the license, did you?), a court might say, OK, he took it back. There was no contract.
That sort of ambiguity, until put to rest, causes trouble for some.
So the MIT (modified Berkeley) license will look better than ever.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
Expect lots of deliberate misunderstandings of this concept for FUD porpoises.
Scenario 1: My company has a website, built in-house with GPLv3 tools and components. It is serving data to customers with web browsers. Is it required to make the code for its website software public?
Scenario 2: My company has an internal software application built in-house with GPLv3 tools and components. This software generates research data. A summary of this data is made available to its customers as, say, PDF files. How is this different from scenario 1?
Scenario 3: My company makes a business out of supplying critical stock trading services to its customers. The backend messaging servers are built on Linux, or use other GPLv3 tools. The application opens interfaces, be they proprietary, to paying customers, so that they can interact with this messaging server.
How is this different from scenario 1?
cat
You couldn't be more wrong:
There are two grants in this clause:
1. [marked with first] the unconditional grant to make derivative works;
2. [marked with second] the conditional grant to distribute derivative works.
This means you may modify a GPL'd program and keep your changes to you. If the licensee is a 3000-employee enterprise, the IT team is not obligated to distribute the changes to each employee as long as each employee is not permitted to take the software home (ie, if the firm is not distributing/licensing its changes to the employees).
Got it? IANAL & TINLA, but I am a paralegal.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
1. tell what you think "distribution" means[...] Distribution (aka publishing) WRT copyright law is the act of making a copy and selling/donating/renting it to another (legal) person.
1a. a corporation is one type of person. In some acts, a corp is represented by some employee that has permission to execute that act. For instance, my enterprise's IT manager (who has proper permission from the rules of the corporation) goes to the MS dealer and negotiates a site license for XP Pro. Who will pay the bill, the IT manager? The IT department? No, the corporation. Who is the licensee? The corporation.
2. note that if Wal-Mart[...] You have noticed you were talking about a tangible good (aprons) instead of copiable, intellectual content? (which we are discussing here) If you were talking about software, for instance, the answer would be: No, they have not distributed it (see #1 above). technically? We are talking about copyright law here, so technically, ie, legally, this does not count as distribution... because no other person is receiving the copies, just the same (legal) person.
3. What is your standard for decide this isn't "distribution"? The copyright law. The person that bought/got/modified the software is the enterprise (acting according to its own internal regulations [*]), the thing starts to be distribution when an authorized person inside the enterprise says "hey, guys, you can take our rebranded OpenOffice.org home and install in your computer"... because then the "Enterprise" person is distributing to the "Employee" person a copy of the software. As opposed to an authorized person inside the Enterprise installing the software in a computer that belongs to the enterprise (no distribution there).
3a. [*] even when acting against corp regulations, the corporation is still liable for the actions of its employees, if others (mainly execs) take notice of said actions and do nothing about it. But this is another can of worms.
4. what stops me from modifying a GPL program like Mozilla and selling binary-only copies to random strangers? The fact that you would then be distributing it?
5. Which is never the case. Sure it is. When your enterprise buys a site license for XP Pro (3000 seats), the enterprise is the licensee. When your IT manager downloads Apache and installs it in an enterprise's server, with permission from the enterprise's execs, the enterprise is the licensee, because the IT manager is doing that on behalf of the enterprise.
6. If a 3000-person enterprise walks into Fry's[...] Enterprises do not have "personal" usage of nothing, only commercial, because they are commercial by nature. Anyway, even for personal use (which an enterprise can buy for an exec, for instance) XP Pro's license only permits installing in one machine.
better now?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
The point of the GPL is to protect the users (NOT the software itself!), by giving them the freedom to modify the software they use as they see fit. A remote user is still a user!
I agree with the first part of this, however as someone who develops code for use on the web I'd say that I was the user and the people looking at my website are seeing documents that is produced by what I set up. I'm the user. The people who are looking at the web pages are consumers of my product. (the pages).
The "remote user" is not a user of the software, they are a user of the result of my use of the software. If I hadn't set it up, they wouldn't be able to see the results.
It's like requiring the plans to a printing company, and a paper factory whenever you buy a book. The manufacting info of the book is not what you are buying, just the contents.