Legal Summits to Tackle Linux

An anonymous reader writes "BuilderAU has the story that the Linux Foundation, custodians of the Linux trademark, have announced that they will host two summits to deal with legal issues surrounding Linux and open-source software. Attendance at the first summit will be restricted to members of the Linux Foundation and their legal counsel. The second summit — an open meeting — will be held in Autumn 2008 where legal experts from any background will be able to attend."

Comments

The foundation owns only the trademark

[jkrise]

Trademark violations of Linux are few, and insignificant. Linus himself seems to be against the spirit of the GPL - either version 2 or 3. Had he chosen the BSD, MS would've swallowed it like Kerberos or the TCP/IP stack and bastardised them, and Linux would've been kicked dead before it started breathing.

The danger from Linus is the one that eeds to be tackled, IMO.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[Anonymous Coward]

Trademark violations of Linux are few, and insignificant. Linus himself seems to be against the spirit of the GPL - either version 2 or 3. Had he chosen the BSD, MS would've swallowed it like Kerberos or the TCP/IP stack and bastardised them, and Linux would've been kicked dead before it started breathing.

The danger from Linus is the one that eeds to be tackled, IMO. Yes, we must follow the Linus way or the RMS way. It only seems logical to invite them both in and have them fight to the death in a cagematch. The survivor gets to determine the GPL version.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[_merlin]

Linus made Linux in the first place. It's his baby. He should be able to take it wherever he wants, whether you or I like it. Whether Linux is in accord with the spirit of the GPL v2 or v3 is irrelevant - the fact is he likes the letter of GPL v2 (I think his assertion that he understands the spirit of GPL v2 better than it's authors is silly, though).

Personally, I disagree with a lot of things about Linux. And you know what I can do about it? Just not use Linux at home. Sure, I use Linux at work, because I develop software for it, because customers want to use it, just as I use Windows at work for developing Windows software for customers who want to use Windows. You can call me a sellout, but the reason I'm at work is to provide something that customers want, to make money to buy food, etc.

If you want an OS that fits your ideology, find like-minded people and build one. Isn't that what HURD is meant to be? Don't try to take over Linux. Since HURD is going nowhere, it would appear that not that many significant developers care about building an OS on an ideology.

Linux seems to get the balance right for a lot of people: open enough that you can modify it and feel in control, but not overly restricted so you can't build a workable business around it. It may be an uncomfortable fact for some, but Linux wouldn't be where it is now without the commercial backing it's got from IBM, Novell, etc. Building and maintaining something like an OS requires huge effort, and the only way to muster that in a capitalist society is with the prospect of building a profitable business on it.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[fuzzyping1]

How exactly did MS swallow "the BSD"? Last time I checked, BSD projects and communities were as strong as ever. If MS chose to use BSD code in their product, good for them! The end result is less crappy code.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[TheRaven64]

Linus made Linux in the first place. It's his baby. He should be able to take it wherever he wants, whether you or I like it. The first place was a long time ago. The first release of Linux was about 10K lines of code; about half the amount of code that I have released so far this year as Free Software (not to Linux, so I have no personal stake in this). Since then, he hasn't exactly done nothing, but his contributions are dwarfed by the large number of other people who have contributed. He can do whatever he wants irrespective of what I want, but I don't think he should ignore the hundreds of other people who who have written the code that makes the kernel what it is today.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[jkrise]

How exactly did MS swallow "the BSD"? Last time I checked, BSD projects and communities were as strong as ever.

How dd they swallow BSD? Simple:
1.First they drank the BSD licensed code, like Kerberos from MIT and the BSD TCP-IP stack.
2. As it descended down their oesophagus, they added proprietary extensions to it, and bundled it with their inferior monopoly Windows OS.
3. The corporate types were then fed with choice quotes and reviews, and Active (Craptive) Directory got deployed.
4. The market leading authentication mechanism is now incompatible with the original BSD Kerberos; thus it has been effectively swallowed.
Clear?

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[rucs_hack]

Lets clear one thing up right here. Microsoft was not only allowed, but very wise to use the bsd TCP/IP stack. Berkley were asked to produce the definitive version of the stack, so as to ensure that all vendors were on the same page, so far as the specification was concerned.

Microsoft changed some parts, as is their wont, but much of it remains unchanged. They may be buggers about a lot of things, but lets get this right, if they hadn't adopted BSDs TCP/IP code, windows would be even worse then it is now.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[bytesex]

You seem to be trolling a bit but no, there is an alternative; keep the kernel GPLv2 and fork the GNU userland just before they go to GPLv3. That isn't such a herculean task as it at first might seem: much of the GNU stuff is at an end, so to speak; textutils, binutils, the shells and compilers are all pretty much finished works. Even Linus said that there may not be a Linux v3, because it's 'done'. Much of the applications that otherwise play on top of Linux are either windowed (which is a whole story onto itself - the quality of Gnome is debatable to put it friendlily) or services (most of those aren't made by the FSF at all). And there exist good alternatives for the GNU userland, as well - shells, compilers, you name it. The FSF may think they're holding Linux by the ears, but they're not.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[_merlin]

And RMS and the FSF made the GPL in the first place, and also wrote lots of code under that license and made it popular. It's their baby, and the FSF have stated their goals and aims very clearly in the text of the GPL, which even a baby can understand.

And if they want to release future versions under the GPL v3, fair enough. They're free to do that, and I won't complain. If I don't like the terms of GPL v3, I don't have to use new versions released under it. However, I can fork older GPL v2 versions and keep them under GPL v2 if I like the idea of that any better - that's one of the freedoms afforded by the GPL v2.

The cry-baby corporate goons who are trying to steal the thunder of the GPL have been checkmated by the FSF which has upgraded the license.

No-one has been checkmated. Making a new version of the GPL that may not be as easy to build a business around does not in any way affect the large volume of software already under GPL v2, and anyone is free to fork it and keep it under the GPL v2.

Linus' reluctance to adopt the GPL3 shows him as a true hypocrite, enemy of freedom, enemy of the GPL, and accomplice of the corporate interests in the Linux Foundation.

No it doesn't. It just shows that his goals are not the same as those of the FSF, and that distributing code under GPL v2 still suits his goals, while the FSF believes their goals are better served by releasing code under GPL v3. Enemy of freedom? Now you're starting to sound a bit like George Dubbya. The GPL v3 is more restrictive than the GPL v2 which is more restrictive than a BSD license. What about the freedom to use code in a commercial, closed-source product? You might not like the idea of that freedom being available to recipients of your code, but it's still a freedom you're denying people by releasing code under GPL. But once again, it's your code - if you don't want it to end up in closed-source software, fair enough - I can't complain.

If not the GPL3, Linus should re-release the kernel in BSD then, if he hates what the GPL stands for.

Why? Whether Linus agrees with what the FSF and their GPLs stand for is irrelevant. The fact is, the GPL v2 happens to suit his goals quite nicely, so he can release code under it if he sees fit.

So, if you don't like the laws of your home country will you flee or build one? What planet are you on?

If I don't like the laws enough, I will flee. I'll choose a country with laws I like. But I need to think about feeding my family, too. I have to weigh up opportunities for employment, health care, etc. as well as whether I like the law when choosing where to live. And the situation is the same with an OS - if you don't like Linux's license, go and use HURD, but remember it's like living in Siberia. Now Siberia is a perfectly good place to live if you want to live in Siberia. But the thing is, most people don't want to live in Siberia. So you end up feeling a bit isolated, and you don't get a great deal of infrastructure out there.

Linux is licensed under the GPL and violations of the spirit of the GPL are more harmful to it's continued growth than trademark violations which this Foundation governs.

Linux is licensed under the GPL v2, and Linus doesn't see the GPL v3 as serving his purposes. He sees no problem with violations of what the FSF sees as the spirit of the GPL. If you don't agree with that, you can stop supporting Linux: don't contribute to Linux, don't release software for Linux and don't use Linux. And you know what will harm Linux's continued growth even more than violations of the GPL? Placing undue restrictions on its use, like those in the GPL v3. All the commercial vendors, who are largely responsible for driving Linux, would either be scared off, or fork it and keep it under GPL v2. I actually agree with Linus on this one - GPL v2 seems to strike the necessary balance.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[EvilRyry]

MS can always come up with a proprietary protocol and make it the "market leading" protocol, whether it is based on an open one or not does not really matter. It does not limit the use of BSD Kerberos protocol by open-source systems, and it wouldn't have changed if it had been GPL'd (in fact, quite possibly even fewer systems would support it). Yes, they tried this. They called it NTLM and it sucked. Hence the move to Kerberos which was then mangled a tad to make it incompatible. Why reinvent the wheel (poorly) when you can just modify the existing one a tiny bit it so that it doesn't fit your competitors product?

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[_merlin]

The first place was a long time ago. The first release of Linux was about 10K lines of code; about half the amount of code that I have released so far this year as Free Software (not to Linux, so I have no personal stake in this). Since then, he hasn't exactly done nothing, but his contributions are dwarfed by the large number of other people who have contributed.

Yes, you make a fair point. I know Linus hasn't written all of what is now Linux. But when people/corporations contribute to Linux, they are granting rights rights to that code to the "Linux project", of which Linus is still effectively the "spiritual leader".

He can do whatever he wants irrespective of what I want, but I don't think he should ignore the hundreds of other people who who have written the code that makes the kernel what it is today.

Two uncomfortable facts:

• Contributors have granted rights to their code, so Linus can do what he sees fit - sure, they can contribute their code to other projects, too if they want, but they can't take back the rights they granted when they submitted the code. And when the code was submitted, one condition was that it could be distributed under GPL v2. As harsh as it may seem, they can't now go and say they only want it distributed under GPL v3.
• A lot of contributions are from corporations like IBM and Novell - people who have commercial interests in Linux. I honestly doubt these contributors would like to see their contributions restricted under GPL v3. Linus also needs to respect these contributors.

Whether I like Linux or not, I think staying with GPL v2 is probably the most sensible path forward to keep the most people happy. As a wise politician once said, "You can please all of the people some of the time, or some of the people all of the time; but you can't please all of the people all of the time."

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[suranyip]

The OP was suggesting that BSD licensing is bad because it allows embrace-and-extend. My point was that this is not something that can be solved by licensing, and that actually with BSD licensed code there are better chances of compatible implementations (as shown by the TCP/IP example) than with the GPL for example. In fact, even RMS agreed that a less restrictive license (compared to the GPL) is suitable for reference implementation of a standard to gain wider adoptation. Thus the OGG Vorbis reference implementation library was licensed BSD.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[TheRaven64]

It's worth noting that a lot of contributors offer their code under different licenses. Some files are MIT or BSD licensed. Some are public domain. Some are GPLv2 or later. Linus uses GPLv2-only, but it is not the only license used. I'd be interested to see how much of the kernel code is under the GPLv2-only license.

Re:The foundation owns only the trademark

[mengel]

But they don't have support for nearly as much networking hardware as Windows does. In a GPL world, much of that support would have had to be contributed back. With a BSD license, Microsoft can have a whole herd of programmers extend the code, and keep all their extensions, and the improvements to the code don't go back to BSD.

No big deal, you say, that doesn't hurt the BSD code as it exists, sure. But now take 4 or 5 or 20 groups all doing this to the BSD code -- the codebase doesn't move much, even though lots of people are making individual improvements -- even worse, those 20 groups don't get to leverage off of each others improvements.

So while people can contribute changes to BSD code back to the code base (and many folks do), big players like Microsoft can mooch off of them and contribute nothing back; making their product always a little bit better than the BSD licensed one, which starves the BSD licencsed product of customers. And in an open source project, customers are also a developer pool.

Re:Bullet and Ballot Box

[Anonymous Coward]

> Linux directly or indirectly tramples over intellectual proeprty

I don't think you know what that statement means. However you could be forgiven in this instance since there is a good reason for that; it doesn't mean anything.

• Linux is a piece of software. It doesn't trample; people trample, but normally with boots.
  
• Intellectual property is a meaningless term. Do you mean trademarks copyright or patents?
  
• directly or indirectly is just a distractor from the lack of examples.
  

If you mean copyrights; please could you point to the code? Linux has pretty clearly been exhonerated by the results of the SCO lawsuit from accusations of copyright infringement. If you mean trademarks that's a first accusation; Linux is pretty clearly a trademark given by a court to Linus Torvalds. If you mean patents, the you'll notice that not even Microsoft has been able to point to one despite direct requests and full access to the source code.

Please feel free to restate your feelings in a way that can actually be usefully discussed.

Against the spirit...

[Enderandrew]

...the spirit of the GPL was to keep software free so that the source code can't be made proprietary (such as what happened with Microsoft swallowing pieces of BSD like you stated). Linus very much supports that clause, and has always spoken in favor of the GPLv2. I'm curious why you suggest he is against the spirit of the GPLv2. The only anti-GPL statements I've seen him make are in regards to GPLv3, in that he doesn't think a software license should govern or have anything to do with hardware.

Re:Against the spirit...

[Aladrin]

No, the spirit of the GPL was to ensure that anyone who benefits from the code returns any upgrades they make to it.

BSD software cannot 'be made proprietary'. The original code will ALWAYS be available under the BSD.

If Linus had chosen BSD License, Microsoft would not have 'swallowed' Linux. It may have improved Windows with it, and may even have ended up with a better system than Linux, but absolutely no real harm would have come to Linux itself.

Re:Against the spirit...

[TheRaven64]

Google : Has made full use of the community built code and made proprietary extensions; without contributing a single bit; since they aren't distributing it. This is not against the spirit of the GPL. The GPL is designed to ensure that the code remains free, and that no one receives a derived work of the original without the accompanying rights. Not distributing changes is entirely allowed under the GPL, and endorsed by the FSF. Google has contributed a huge amount to Free Software. The Summer of Code alone accounts for an incredible amount of time spent on Free Software, and a lot of Google employees use their 20% time to work on Free Software projects (the Mac port of FUSE, for example, was one of these).

HP : The company which kicked Bruce Perens out, built winprinters and winmodems on their Windows PCs, kindly took over Compaq and destroyed their Unix offerings. Compaq had UNIX offerings? HP have made a lot of mistakes in recent years (killing the Alpha, marginalising VMS, etc). Perhaps you are thinking of Digital; they pretty much killed of Tru64. They still offer HP-UX and Linux machines, however, and fund development on a number of Free Software projects (Xen, for example).

IBM: Despite the SCO fiasco, they still maintain both AIX and Linux offerings, and have not clearly indicated which way they will go. Also, they are behind TCPA, TPM chips and DRM as well. They employ a number of developers to work full time on Linux, Xen, and recently OpenOffice.org, as well as a few other projects. But, I suppose, since they still sell a proprietary UNIX as well, they are evil.

Novell : Need I say more? They provoked a version upgrade to the GPL2 by their sleazy dealings and destroyed a decent distro, namely SuSE. After kindly enacting a suicide of their own Novell Netware. Bought SuSE and open sourced YaST, employ a few kernel devs, a lot of GNOME devs, and are the second largest contributor to OpenOffice.org. Definitely evil.

Re:Against the spirit...

[Enderandrew]

You're honestly suggesting that Google, HP, IBM and Novell don't contribute code?

Re:Against the spirit...

[weicco]

Never ever bring facts to conversation! It's against the rules here.

Re:Against the spirit...

[Aladrin]

If that were the case, I'd say 'Fuck the GPL!' then. Any time 1 entity has sole ability to declare something 'free', something is seriously fucked up.

Luckily, it's not the case.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesFreeSoftwareMeanUsingTheGPL

Re:Against the spirit...

[bentcd]

Google : Has made full use of the community built code and made proprietary extensions; without contributing a single bit; since they aren't distributing it. This is not against the spirit of the GPL. It is when that code is de facto offered to the public as software for them to use. The point of the GPL is that the user of a piece of software shall always be free to modify that software as he sees fit so that he can maximize its usefulness to him. If Google offers, say, a spreadsheet application that is largely server-based and uses the server-side loophole to avoid distributing the source, then they violate this principle since the user obviously cannot change the way that it works. The same is true for a search engine, of course, but this case seems a little more muddled.

Re:Against the spirit...

[kdemetter]

HonIsCool , you never read a GPL license , did you ?

There is no way FSF can 'eradicate' non-free software . Using GPL only prevents non-free software from 'eradicating' free software . The only reason to use it , is to make sure nobody can take your work , change one line of code , and then release it under a propiertary lincense and make money of your hard work .

No one is forcing you to use license all your programs under GPL . You can/should use the license you prefer , acording to what you need .

Re:Against the spirit...

[Afecks]

It is when that code is de facto offered to the public as software for them to use. The point of the GPL is that the user of a piece of software shall always be free to modify that software as he sees fit so that he can maximize its usefulness to him. If Google offers, say, a spreadsheet application that is largely server-based and uses the server-side loophole to avoid distributing the source, then they violate this principle since the user obviously cannot change the way that it works. The same is true for a search engine, of course, but this case seems a little more muddled. Said spreadsheet application is not being distributed, the results of the application are. The input/output scheme is no different than any other Web 2.0 site. User inputs data, server does something with data, server outputs data. It seems you want to get into some metaphysical debate about the fine line between executing, hosting and distributing software.

It's no different in principle than a website using Apache/mySQL to serve some HTML or using GNU/Linux to host any kind of service. It's not distributing. You get nothing. You lose. Good day sir.

Re:Bullet and Ballot Box

[tolan-b]

All software 'tramples over intellectual property'. Half of the most basic interface features and algorithms used by *everyone* in the software industry are patented. It's pretty much impossible to write modern software (in countries that allow software patents) that doesn't infringe on multiple patents.

Here are some examples of patents granted (but not enforceable, it's a strange situation) in Europe. I suspect most of them have also been granted and *are* enforceable in the US.

http://eupat.ffii.org/patents/samples/index.en.html

Invite the Slashdot crowd

[Chapter80]

Open Source summits, great! I imagine that the most frequently heard phrase at the summits will be "IANAL,..."

Re:Invite the Slashdot crowd

[Nerdfest]

There will however, be lots of real lawyers there. I understand the logo for the summit features a penguin shaking hands with a weasel.

Re:Invite the Slashdot crowd

[crimperman]

I understand the logo for the summit features a penguin shaking hands with a weasel.

An iceweasel by any chance?

I'll help!

[mattgreen]

I can answer all kinds of legal questions about Linux on Slashdot, so why didn't they invite me?

Re:Bullet and Ballot Box

[Enderandrew]

Yep, when Linus said that he didn't really want to get involved in license wars, and wouldn't carry the GPL torch, he clearly demonstrated that he is obnoxious in his desire to trample over people's rights.

When Linus said he didn't care about politics, only code, he was emulating the IRA without a doubt.

When Linus said he didn't intend to take a side with the Novell/Microsoft deal, but rather just focus on writing code, his clear intention to command legal authority and force his hegemony over all.

Taking things seriously

[JeremyGNJ]

It's nice to see the Linux Foundation taking things seriously.

Despite what the board-posting-fanboy-home-users say on slashdot, the legal ramifications of Linux are a serious concern to businesses adopting it. If they aren't nailed down and addressed, then it will continue to be the preferred OS of Mom's basement.

In the end I think that the outcome will be playing nicer with closed-source and allowing a certain amount of concession. The question is: Is the community mature enough to handle that?