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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."
Yes, I could see that. He's not red, because he's not a communist. And he's not yellow either, because he's no coward. He's not blue, because he's not sad. He's not green, because he seems to have experience. Yes, I think "maroon" could be a good word for describing him.
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.
And the final straw? I had NoScript enabled in Firefox, and when I first went to Law.com to read the article, I got a 404 error message because scripting was blocked. The kicker? Law.com uses Apache Tomcat server - open source software (albeit not GPL). Either Law.com knows better than Mr. Walsh, or is just too cheap to pay for a proprietary web server - can't afford their own dog food, eh?
"A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."
This is obviously written from the perspective of "anti-free software."
"The new lesson is that the freedom belongs to the software, not to users." This is SO bogus and mis characterizes the whole point of the new GPL. The "freedom" is absolutely for the users, especially the end users. The restrictions quoted in the article have nothing to do with users, but everything to do with ISVs taking GPL software and screwing the users.
"Changes in the GPL impose other limits on the ability to leverage a proprietary position when open source is involved."
This is true, so, write it for yourselves then. Don't think you can capitalize on someone else's work and deny then the ability to capitalize on your modifications to their software, that isn't very fair.
I don't get what the issue is. If you want to develop closed source software, then so be it, however, don't take other's GPL code and try to close that off, that's theft. How hard is it for the reptilian lawyer brain to understand this very simple concept.
We even say what is needed to comply. But NOOO, they have to keep up with the FUD.
Last little bit:
"Edmund J. Walsh is a shareholder and a member of the electrical and computer technologies and the IP transactions groups at Wolf Greenfield."
Ahh, now I understand!
This article is confused and makes all sorts of horrible assumptions. In short, the author seems to believe that the only way people make money off free software by adding "differentiating" proprietary software to it. Since the whole point of the GPL is to prevent people from making the software under its purview non-free, it shouldn't really be surprising, then, that the author finds it a huge pain in the neck. Personally, I'd say the license is a success, and I suspect a lot of the companies making money from GPLed software would agree with me.
-- Brett Smith, License Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation
Did you? Then how do you justify writing
? When you do RTFA, note the 6th and 7th paragraphs, from which I quote:
Clueless post, more like.
Do I disagree or agree with the article? Doesn't matter. Though I really do like the closing paragraph:
I'm here EdgeKeep Inc.
What a lousy, misleading article. He makes it clear upfront that he's talking about two separate things, but then he goes on to mix them together indiscriminately throughout the rest of the article. (1) If you build your business on GPL 2 software, you'd better read the GPL 2. People who don't are getting sued. (2) GPL 3 is different from GPL 2, and may be incompatible with some business models that GPL 2 is compatible with.
Re #1: Duh. Don't agree to a license without making sure you can abide by the license. Re #2: Similar duh, and it's relatively inconsequential because very little software is under GPL 3 so far. (The typical PHB reading this is probably not going to understand that GPL 2 doesn't automatically update GPL 3, but the article could easily leave you with the impression that it does.)
With the filing of court documents, a philosophical debate about the proper place for software in society has become a business dispute with the risk of substantial consequences.
Well, no, it's not a risk. A risk refers to something you can't predict. If you agree to a license and then violate the license, that's not a risk, that's intentionally shooting yourself in the foot.
For-profit companies using open source software should take notice
He talks about "for-profit" like this all through the article. That's stupid. The GPL doesn't discriminate between for-profit and not-for-profit use. Of course the people getting sued are all for-profit companies. Is this a surprise? A nonprofit probably wouldn't have any motivation to violate the GPL, and anyhow you don't usually pick people to sue who don't have money.
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.
Huh? This is idiotic. Software doesn't have human rights. The GPL also doesn't place any restrictions on how software is used. In fact, you can use GPL'd sofwtware without even agreeing to the license. You only have to agree to the GPL if you want to modify the software and then redistribute it.
Any activity that leverages software for business advantage is likely to restrict the software's freedom
Hmm...say Joe's Garage uses Firefox and OpenOffice. Can anyone explain why that's likely to "restrict the software's freedom?" Or say Barnes and Noble runs Linux on their servers. Does that mean they're "likely to restrict the software's freedom?" What he really means is that if you try to violate the GPL by making OSS into proprietary software, you've got a problem. That's a lot narrower than "leveraging software for business advantage."
and the growing use of open source software by for-profit companies has been a growing irritant for free software advocates.
Oh, God, it just gets dumber and dumber. The OSS community wants users. Everyone I know in the OSS community is typically overjoyed that IBM got on the Linux bandwagon. They're happy that Google is generally OSS-friendly. They love it that more and more OEMs are offering machines with Linux preinstalled.
Find free books.
If I release code under BSD, that code is always under BSD. If someone else releases a new product based on my code, they have to admit it -- but they can keep their code to themselves if they so wish.
... not that I'm biased or anything (checks name again)... nope, not biased at all...
I haven't lost anything, because no one took MY code and told me I couldn't use it anymore. Likewise, I didn't *TAKE AWAY* their ability to do what they wanted with THEIR WORK.
No freedom is lost under BSD.
Under GPL, if someone uses my code to do something else, then their code effectively becomes my code as well, and they have to play by my rules. Therefore, I am restricting their ability to access control over their own time and creative works. I have effectively limited the other developer.
"End users" by the definition probably don't give a crap if they can see the code. If they did anything with it, they'd be developers. I don't see how end users lose out either way -- license arguments really only affect other developers.
The debacle last month with ExtJS proved this.
ExtJS is a case where people want the developer mindshare of open-source development without actually releasing their code as open-source. They are trying trick after trick to avoid the implications of open-source development. Right now it's a weird interpretation of the GPLv3. Before that it was "we are releasing under the terms of the LGPL, but you aren't allowed to redistribute as LGPL because we aren't offering it as LGPL, just under the terms of the LGPL". Before that it was another trick. This doesn't mean the licenses in question aren't any good, it means they aren't acting in good faith.
Again the FSF has NO ANSWER to this question.
Of course the FSF has no answer to this question. Courts are the final authority when it comes to licenses. The same was true of previous incarnations of the GPL as well. The same is true of every other license. Until there is case law, it's all speculation.
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?
I think you need a lesson in supply and demand.
you write the software once and can sell a billion copies with no overhead costs to you. Do you think dell or apple can sell a million computers without buying a million computer cases? if everyone was a millionare how much would a loaf of bread cost?
Software by it's very nature means unlimited supply of the product thus making it worthless. Novell, IBM, Red Hat, etc are making Billions by not selling software, but by selling the service, and customization of said software for particular needs.
Software doesn't follow standard economic rules of supply and demand. Stop trying to pretend that it does.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
I disagree. I think this "maroon" isn't really telling people that "Open Source under GPLv3 is Bad" so much as he is telling people "Open Source doesn't mean what you think it means."
This is very evident in his opening paragraph: "Two recent events should give for-profit companies new reasons to re-evaluate the ways in which they use open source software as well as the extent to which they use it."
This is a "heads-up" to let people know that they need to be more careful with how they use other peoples' work. The GPLv3 doesn't change the fact that they should have been more careful before, but it does make abuse more risky. I think this is what Mr. Walsh is trying to point out.
Users want to develop on the code aswell. Users can be companies, experienced software developers and even regular old Joe, who just wants to have an annoying bug fixed in his favorite software package. The nonexistent distinction between users and developers is exactly the reason why BSD is less free than GPL.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The cumulative number of errors of fact plus the lack of clarity in the meaning of his main points make this a highly incendiary and misleading article. As little as I may like GPL3 for other reasons, he paints a herring quite red several times over. The cases he points to are much simpler than he'd make them sound. I found this article insulting on several levels. I hope I do not to have to educate too many readers mislead by it in the future.
The article is very FUDdy in nature. For example: Well, clearly not. A reading of the GPL will generally show that the 'output' of a program isn't covered by the license unless, say, the output of that program reproduces part of itself or another GPLed work, for example. Complete FUD. FUD, FUD, FUD. The GPL's patent provisions only pertain to patents (whether currently existing, or existing in the future) that directly affect the particular software package conveyed. IOW, if Microsoft distributes the latest version of Samba, then it cannot subsequently sue the Samba developers or any recipients of the Samba code for patent infringement related to Samba.
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Rather than "for profit companies", he most likely should have said "for profit software companies who want to use GPL'ed software as part of their software offering". The company that I work for is "for profit". It uses software, but does not develop it for sale or redistribution. So the fact that some of the software we use is GPL'ed is irrelevant.