OpenOffice.Org Now Under LGPLv3

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Sun has moved OpenOffice.org to the LGPLv3 license. In his blog Sun's Simon Phipps cites worry over software patents as being one of their main reasons for this move: 'Upgrading to the LGPLv3 brings important new protections to the OpenOffice.org community, most notably through the new language concerning software patents. You may know that I am personally an opponent of software patents, and that Sun has already taken steps in this area with a patent non-assert covenant for ODF. But the most important protection for developers comes from creating mutual patent grants between developers. LGPLv3 does this.'"

Comments

Re:Software

[Anonymous Coward]

The idea is patented. The very specific implementation (the code) is copyrighted.
The patent on the idea will eventually expire. The exact specific code used in their specific implementation will remain copyrighted longer.

Imagine someone long ago patented the idea of the book when they wrote the first one and copyrighted it. The patent on the idea of books would long ago have expired, but each individual book can still be copyrighted for a certain period of time.

Re:Market Fragmentation

[AvitarX]

It would be nice if people stuck to LGPL 2+, GPL 2+, Old X11/New BSD or multi-licenses that included them. This would allow for compatibility for the most part. Other licenses that are compatible but not multi-license are OK too, but really should just be one of those IMO (based solely on momentum, not quality).

CC is not a Free or Open license (as it is used for the most part anyway). So I think your post is just further muddying the waters.

Re:Software

[sayfawa]

Unfortunately, plots of books and movies are also being patented by people like this.

Linus needs to reconsider GPL V3

[FreeUser]

No, but Linux==GPL. Sun could release ZFS under a Linux-compatible license without affecting anything else (they could triple-license it).

The only reason Sun isn't releasing ZFS under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license is to prevent Linux from using it. And that tells you that Sun is lying when they are saying that they are supporting Linux; they are trying to hurt Linux and replace it with their shit.

While I think you have a point, and I share (to a degree) your suspicion with regards to Sun's motivations, I would point out that Linus brought this upon himself in no small part as a result of "not trusting" the Free Software Foundation (or Richard Stallman personally, I suppose), and not licensing the Linux kernel under the GPL V2 "or any later version." As a direct result of this, it is impossible for Sun to release their product under a Linux kernel compatible license that also protects them from Software patent claims, as the GPL V3 and Sun's own open source licenses do.

I have been a Linux advocate since the mid nineteen-nineties, and remain so today, but Linus' stubbornness on the licensing issue may well have condemned Linux to the annals of history sooner than it otherwise might have been. Sun may be trying the accelerate this, but in point of fact, I supsect it will be Linux's incompatibility with GPL V3, V4, V5... that will push it away from the center of the Free Software and Open Source world in the coming decades, far more than any political maneuverings by Sun, Microsoft, SCO, or anyone else.

Why does this matter, when we're talking timeframes greater than any software's life cycle? Because free software, unlike proprietary products, tends to change, morph, fork, and become incorporated into new products. Emacs has reinvented itself numerous times. So too has the Linux kernel and a dozen other free software projects. But now, as the legal copyright/patent landscape changes and much of the world is forced to move to protective licenses such as GPL V3 as a matter of self-preservation, Linux will be left out. More and more code will be license-incompatible with the kernel, which over time may well become an insurmountable problem. There is no reason that fragments of Linux code wouldn't have been included in an operating system in 2050 ... perhaps one calling itself Linux ... except that it will be license incompatible, and the GPL V2 so hopelessly outdated with current law and legal precedents as to be nearly useless.

It is this kind of entropy that the Free Software Foundation's recommendation of "GPL V or any later version" was designed to address. Unfortunately, Linux doesn't have that option, so instead (most ironically) it will likely be a bit of FreeBSD, or perhaps GNU Hurd code, that we see floating around in the codebase of whatever free OS we're running forty-odd years from now, and much of that will be down to licensing as much as technical merit.