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GPLv3's Implications Hitting Home For Lawyers
Specter writes "The GPL version 3 is getting some attention in legal circles, especially as it relates to its interaction with proprietary software and patents. Edmund J. Walsh penned an article for Law.com discussing the GPLv3 and the risks it poses for hardware and software companies."
As far as the commercial web services part, there are certainly issue in this area that are not clear and are being raised.
The debacle last month with ExtJS proved this. They relicensed under GPLv3 and then began trying to demand money for a commercial license from everyone who used their javascript library in a commercial web site, stating that you cannot use their library in your website under the GPL unless you open source all of the code used to generate your website (html, css, js, and any server side code like PHP, Ruby, or Python).
Many people contacted the FSF over this issue, and the response was pretty much "we don't know the answer to that, the courts haven't decided it, and it would have to be decided on a case by case basis".
In my opinion it is 100% possible that a GPLv3 project will be able to get a court to rule that if you use open source software to power a web site then all of the source code that generates that web site must be open sourced. Again the FSF has NO ANSWER to this question.
Horsepuckey. OSS is all about protecting and creating wealth and making gobs of money.
I spent 2 years building an embedded panel. We could have bought some proprietary software and gone on from there. Instead we used linux, elinks, and some open source libs. We also used open hardware, and even sponsored the development of additional hardware. All of that allowed us to bring a full-fledged completely industry standard control panel that's ethernet enabled, has an industry standard web server built in, is easily field modifiable, and, best of all, has no license fees. Our competition uses proprietary technology. They have a 300 baud serial connection. We have wifi, 100 mbit ethernet, and web connectivity - all for about the same investment up front, with about the same hardware costs, and we pay no royalties.
Who has the market advantage?
From the article:
By now, most open source users understand that free refers to freedom, not to price. The new lesson is that the freedom belongs to the software, not to users. You are not free to do whatever you want with the open source software and may find yourself in a legal fight if what you do restricts the freedom of the software.
I disagree with several statements that the author doesn't understand the GPL. While the article does tend toward "scaremongering" I think the author has a pretty fair understanding and is looking forward from a legal point of view and he's a tad nervous about what he sees as potential areas of conflict.
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
the GPL 3 license is NOT free software. It significantly restricts CERTAIN people from using it, thus is clearly NOT FREE.
It doesn't restrict anyone from USING it.
It prevents 'other people' from RESTRICTING you from using it. If YOU are those 'other people', it prevents you from preventing other people from using it.
BSD is truly free license
Yeah it is, if you are lucky enough to get something BSD licensed. No guarantee that's going to happen even if all the projects it was based on were BSD, it might be all locked up proprietary when you obtain a derivative software.
People who write GPL software want the end users to be able to modify and redistribute the software. That's freedom. And the GPL ensures that goal is met.
What freedom do you get with the 'truly free' BSD? You get the 'freedom' to restrict people further down the line so that they can't modify or redistribute the software. Ever wonder what people 'down the line' think of this truly free BSD software? Oh wait... they didn't get any. By the time the software got to them it wasn't BSD anymore, it wasn't free anymore.
This article is FUD, but it is actually well founded FUD.
EG, the GPLv3 is specifically designed to limit the "set top box" model, as the provider can no longer treat it as a sealed appliance if GPLv3 code is involved (the anti-TiVo clause).
The GPLv3's patent liscence clause is deliberately broad:
A contributor's essential patent claims are all patent claims owned or controlled by the contributor, whether already acquired or hereafter acquired, that would be infringed by some manner, permitted by this License, of making, using, or selling its contributor version, but do not include claims that would be infringed only as a consequence of further modification of the contributor version. For purposes of this definition, control includes the right to grant patent sublicenses in a manner consistent with the requirements of this License.
Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.
Likewise, the recent lawsuits have made it clear that the FSF crowd has grown more willing to carry the GPL into court, and as another poster mentioned, there is the ExtJS's use of the GPL: Since the Javascript gets into the final product (the page), you can argue that by using ExtJS, your web site page, as rendered, is now GLPv3, the same problem Bison used to have before they changed it from being pure GPL, not to mention the attempt to "atheroize" the GPL because of the "googleization" problem.
Test your net with Netalyzr
You get paid for your time to write something useful for someone. Just like I do, I don't get royalties on any of the closed-source products at work, I just get paid for my time. Which does include some hacking on free software to suit our needs. And making sure that licenses are followed, and that GPL and similarly licensed code does not get combined with our proprietary code.
If no-one wants that program enough to pay someone to write it, then it gets done by people who want to have that program more than they want to be paid to write a different program. Or by people who just want to write software.
Or it doesn't get done.
Unlike commercial software, though, there isn't a whole bunch of marketing out to trick people into wanting the program. "Install this toolbar and we'll p0wn your Internet Explorer I mean give you an enhanced browsing experience!"
How the hell do you build a business advantage over a competitor when you are forced to divulge your developments to everybody?
What, competition without state protection? Build a business advantage by being better, cheaper, faster, leaner? That sounds almost like a free market; cant have that, eh?
will GPL3 ruin open source development in the business world
No. It will create problems for free riders and make it easier for good corporate citizens to abide by the GPL because they wont have to worry about their less ethical brethren using it against them.
One corporations proprietary advantage is everyone elses disadvantage; some companies actually realize this and figure that having an advantage for 6 months in one area while their competitors have an advantage in another area for 6 months means they get a clean slate with _both_ advantages at the beginning of the next cycle. Plus their new advantage for that cycle... Moving technology forward much faster and not subject to anyone elses whims.
Linux would not be where it is today without business support
Businesses who have, to a large extent, been part of formulating the GPLv3. The corporate objectors to GPLv3 tend to be more in the non-contributing camp.
Since I've been modded "troll" already, and since you've taken at least a civil enough tone, I'll try to clarify what I mean.
Free is Freedom, except for people with whom the FSF and RMS disagree with on whatever principle they're trying to stand on. Much of the additions to the GPL from v2 to v3 have to do with issues arising from how certain people USED GPLv2 software. The likes of RMS have political ax to grind, and it shows up in the GPL3.
If I recall correctly certain parts of the GPL were written expressly to privide a certain "lockout" (ie prevent hacking) of a particular device. While the code was provide under GPL v2 for all the GPL2 software, someone didn't like that they couldn't hack it up like they wanted.
This isn't about "free" code (it was available) it was more about how someone figured out a way to keep control over the free code in the device they were selling.
If you want code open, then let it be open. If you want to control how or who uses your code, then don't make it free. At least be intellectually honest about it. The result of GPL3 is exactly the same as a EULA that restricts who and how software is run.
In this case, RMS is wrong. If RMS was truly about "Free" as in "freedom" he would have chosen BSD style license, which has even less restrictions. I even go further and will predict to you that GPL4 will be even more restrictive as people figure out ways around the restrictions of GPL3 that RMS doesn't like. Care to make a wager?
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.