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Red Hat Software Businesses GNU is Not Unix Government The Courts Your Rights Online News

Explaining Open Source Software 182

Posted by michael from the score-5,-informative dept.
scubacuda writes "Mark Webbink, Red Hat's general counsel, has written an informative article explaining free and open source software. Geared towards attorneys, he explains the various licenses and addresses several myths about OSS." One to bookmark.
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Explaining Open Source Software More

Explaining Open Source Software

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  • Lawyers (Score:2, Funny)

    by Thunderstruck ( 210399 )
    Lawyers on both sides! Thats how the world was meant to work!

  • Derivative work (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Cat_Byte ( 621676 )
    Where does the law stand on derivative works in software?[8]

    The law on derivative works in software is not well established. The U.S. Copyright Act does not specifically address derivative works in software, and there are no U.S. Supreme Court cases immediately on point.
    SCO?
    • SCO?

      No. SCO has not taken any derivative work claims to court, they're just yapping their mouth, trying to spread FUD and get their stocks high.

      Their case against IBM is a contract violation, not copyright.

  • Great overview! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by linux_user_31337 ( 737587 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:40PM (#7874181)
    This article is exactly what I need to explain open source to my dad, a lawyer. It's especially difficult getting the concepts behind open source across to him now that I'm writing open source code (BSD license, no less) for a *living*.

    Thanks again, Groklaw. It's so wonderful having some lawyers on *our* side!

  • Difficult for lawyers to grasp.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by irokitt ( 663593 ) <archimandrites-iaur.yahoo@com> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:41PM (#7874186)
    Lawyer: You mean you *want* it to be free?
    • I had a similar exchange with a lawyer in our Office of Government Commerce.

      In the two years since though they have made noticeable progress.

      So yes, it really was difficult for lawyers (and editors and accountants and parliamentarians and others) to grasp, and partly this was becuase of the effort to keep it obscure by the PR of the closed source suppliers.

      THe latter continues, and needs to be countered on an individual basis with each journalist one meets or gets to know. Carefully.

  • One possible explanation (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:41PM (#7874187)
    On the subject of using volunteers versus paid programmers:

    "Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic."
    • Yeah, except one is a myth and a made up story that never really happened, and the other is something that actually happened and they learned from their mistakes and went on to further successes.

    • Typical lawyer misdirection ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AHumbleOpinion ( 546848 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:39PM (#7874502) Homepage
      "Remember, amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic."

      Mild humor value aside ...

      How many icebergs did the Ark bounce off of? And if we are accepting the Ark and Flood we have to also accept that God was piloting the Ark, have to take the entire story or none at all , and piloting was the problem with Titanic not construction. That is we are being fair and objective.

      Personally if the pro Open Source lawyer is making statements like the above the document's credibility comes into question. Where there is one piece of spin and misdirection there may be more. I would prefer a objective unbiased legal analysis. The author should hold the jokes for the conference presentations.

      • That statement was not from the lawyer (Score:4, Informative)

        by Tim Macinta ( 1052 ) <twm@alum.mit.edu> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:48PM (#7874569) Homepage
        Personally if the pro Open Source lawyer is making statements like the above the document's credibility comes into question.
        The lawyer didn't make that statement. The closest he comes to addressing the quality of volunteer versus professional work is where he lists specific examples to dispel the myth that Open Source does not produce innovation. The boat analogy was not related to the paper, the AC was just making a joke - the paper is actually very well reasoned.
        • dispel the myth that Open Source does not produce innovation ... the paper is actually very well reasoned

          I have to disagree with the paper's answer to the question of Open Source not producing innovation. My reasoning is that the answer cites Apache and SendMail, states that they are popular, therefore they are innovative.

          This sounds like a Microsoft definition of innovation.

          Was apache the first web server software? No.
          Is it innovative to make a cheaper version of something that is already availabl

      • Re:Typical lawyer misdirection ... (Score:5, Funny)

        by JordanH ( 75307 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @03:21PM (#7874815) Homepage Journal
        • How many icebergs did the Ark bounce off of?
        The Ark survived at least as many iceberg strikes as the Titanic.

  • Eh? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Film11 ( 736010 )
    I really don't see whats so hard to understand about OSS. It's free and its meant to be distributed and you can edit it, but you've got to give credit to whoever made the orginial version. It's that simple. Well probably NOT that simple, I'm no OSS guru, but I think it's like that...
    • I really don't see whats so hard to understand about OSS.

      Here's the hard part in a short: if you give your product away for free, where's the profit?

      • Re:Eh? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Film11 ( 736010 )
        I see your point, but free stuff makes people like the product, unless the said product is crap, in which case he will know this and just give up. However, if the product is good and useful, people will donate. Its a fact of life, you see it everywhere like here [the-underdogs.org] and here [ctrlaltdel-online.com]. Both those sites give something for nothing, and they manage to make a living perfectly well.

      • Re:Eh? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:10PM (#7874345)
        Water is free.

        Water is a $5 billion industry.

        Seems simple enough.
        • Water is free.

          You don't live in Colorado and its maze of twisty little water rights regulations, do you? :)

          • Re:Eh? (Score:2)

            by kien ( 571074 )
            Water is free.
            You don't live in Colorado and its maze of twisty little water rights regulations, do you? :)

            Y'all ever hear about what happens when you melt snow? Just stay away from the yellow stuff... :)

            --K.

            P.S. Just to prove I was kidding...I was pulling for Denver today. Congrats Colts fans.
            • Colorado gets a lot of water from melting snow. If you started getting water from their snow in any significant quantity, you can bet that, since you're depriving them of some of their water, the regulations people will be on you in a second. Yes, they'll even regulate the yellow snow.
      • support, costumization.
        you know, the big money makers already...
      • And the short answer: selling support, dual licensing, bounties for features, or perhaps experience, fame, chrity, or a way to pass the time. And for the common case, companies using but not creating OSS - it saves money.

      • Re:Eh? (Score:2, Informative)

        by bubkus_jones ( 561139 )
        Who says you have to give it away for free?

        Not everything has to be free as in speech and beer, otherwise how would Red Hat/Suse/whoever be able to charge money for their Linux distributions (among all the completely free distro's out there) and not immediately fold?

        Customer support is a part of that, but so is offering the package in an easily installable, usable and maintainable set. Look at some of the really Newbie-Friendly distros (xandros and Lindows), both offer easy-to-use versions of Debian (avai

    • Re:Eh? (Score:3, Informative)

      by morgue-ann ( 453365 )
      The trickiest part of GPL-like OSS licenses to me is figuring out where the line on "derivative works" ends.

      This is really a problem of copyright law in general and companies that collaborate (source only open to the parties involved) can get into trouble deciding who owns the resultant work, but most closed-source licenses are pretty simple: I can distribute object form only of the Metaware libraries, I can do anything with the input or output of their compiler (my code) and my work which uses their libr

      • Re:Eh? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by fozwinkel ( 265919 )

        FSF claims, in their FAQ and the preamble to the LGPL, that any linking to a GPL library makes the whole program derived. However, they do not give reference to any statute or judicial interpretation that supports their statement. IMHO, linking does not necessarily make a derived work.

        I decided to distribute my library (tkgeomap.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]) under the GPL with some trepidation. It is a library, and I worried that FSF's statements about linking would scare away proprietary developers, who have hel

        • if your program falls on its face without my library, then it's a derived work

          That's not a very useful definition to me. While you might use it only for your program, it doesn't seem generally applicable. What application can run without an OS under it? What OS can run without driver to help it talk to hardware? What GUI app can run without widget/drawing libraries?

  • More ways to prevent people from doing their job (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Brahmastra ( 685988 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:44PM (#7874206)
    Here's one of the guidelines from the article:
    1. Do not permit the uncontrolled importation of software onto company computers. Do not permit employees to download freeware, shareware, or Open Source software onto company computers without first clearing the license terms with the legal department. At the same time, bar the use of proprietary software except to the extent that the company can account for the permitted licenses. In other words, know what you are putting on your machines--to do otherwise exposes your company to risk.
    At least for me, this would severly hamper my ability to do work. For example, I sometimes use perl to parse through MAP files. So, if I wanted to download a FREE version of perl and run it, I have to go to some lawyer to explain why I want to use it? I can think of a hundred other reasons this would be a bloody pain, and result in a lot of bureaucratic hassle for engineers.
    • Clearly we all recognize the hassles that result from having to clear software with a 'legal' department, however, I think we've seen enough BSA attacks on businesses to know that it's necessary.

    • On The Other Hand (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wiredog ( 43288 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:05PM (#7874314) Journal
      "Know what you are putting on your machines" is great advice for a sysadmin. In fact, Do not permit employees to download ... without first clearing the license terms with ... legal. ... bar the use of proprietary software except to the extent that the company can account for the permitted licenses comes under the heading of "best practices" for a sysadmin.

      And remember, once the GPL, MPL, Artistic License, etc, have been cleared through legal, anything under those licenses is no longer barred from downloading.

      • And remember, once the GPL, MPL, Artistic License, etc, have been cleared through legal, anything under those licenses is no longer barred from downloading.

        Yep, viruses/worms think they are already cleared due to their premissive distribution license and saves you the bother of downloading/distributing it yourself.

      • "anything under those licenses is no longer barred from downloading."

        By the SYSADMIN of course, NOT the users. Users should never be installing software in a work environment.
    • Actually the quote says "...without first clearing the license terms with the legal department."

      So for example, don't let your employees use GPL software until you understand what the GPL is. Fair enough. After you approve the GPL license terms, people are free to use GPL software.

      Did you interpret this to mean that you would need approval for each piece of open source software? Because yes, that would be a huge pain! I don't think that is what the guideline meant. Getting an open source license approved once isn't a big deal.
    • a lot of bureaucratic hassle for engineers.

      This is the entirety of justficiation for the existence of most "corporate" "departments." It's also a very efficient way to ensure universal mediocrity.

    • Re:More ways to prevent people from doing their jo (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Fnkmaster ( 89084 ) * on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:08PM (#7874338)
      Yes, that is definitely idiotic big-company-think. I think a manager should be responsible for informally overseeing or okaying use of random new tools. Using a tool is very different from incorporating source code, copy-and-pasting material, and doing something that creates a potential legal issue. As a manager, if somebody says they need Winzip, emacs, bash or whatever to feel comfortable and get work done, then more power to them. It should be made completely clear to them that they can't download source code or software from any source on the internet for use as a part of a product, runtime component or anything like that without approval from a manager and legal. Beyond that, there's nothing you can do but trust your employees, make the potential consequences really clear, and conduct regular code reviews to spot anything potentially suspect (primarily just to spot shitty, lazy code, but if somebody really cut and pasted a bunch of code, it would probably be obvious if you knew their coding style, your company's coding standards, and so on).

      • You missed the point ... (Score:4, Informative)

        by AHumbleOpinion ( 546848 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:51PM (#7874595) Homepage
        You missed the point, there are two problems. One is source code, the second is unlicensed software. Having an unlicensed copy of a piece of software can be a huge legal issue. Not having a policy where software have to be approved in some formal way only makes the legal issue worse. "Big company think" is not universally wrong, occasionally they do the right thing. Whether the rare right choice being made was accidental or not I leave to a different discussion.
        • And you need to talk to the legal department to figure out if you've properly purchased a copy of WinZip for your developers? Or whether emacs needs to be purchased before it's used? If issues that trivial can't be solved by a 10 second conversation between a developer and their manager, then your company is broken. Don't expect to be putting out product any time soon.

          There are certainly issues that do require discussion with a lawyer and conference with a legal department or outside counsel. If you p

          • And you need to talk to the legal department to figure out if you've properly purchased a copy of WinZip for your developers?

            Nope. That would already be on the list of approved products whose licences have been reviewed by legal. Also part of a standard set of development tools installed onto a developers system by IT. The IT department tracks the site/corporate license and increase the license as needed.

            Or whether emacs needs to be purchased before it's used?

            Nope. Part of a pre-approved Linux a
            • Why bother reading licenses? They're irrelevant. You bought it, you own it, you can use it. Remember, with software you *own* everything but the copyright. You can do anything you wish with your software, short of copying it. An EULA that attempts to restrict your actions is an invalid after-sale restriction. Similar to being sold a car and then being told you need to buy proprietary tires or they'll reposess your car.

              Pre-sale contracts or licenses, the distinction is very blurry, are different. You know t
    • It is a bureaucratic hassle, but it is a necessary one. Let's look it in a slightly different way: the lawyer has to support and defend the company's software use in court. This is basically a sysadmin type job: the network sysadmin defends the company's network from technical threats, and insures the smooth running of the network. To do this he needs to know what software is in use. The company's lawyer needs to defend the company from legal threats and insure the smooth handling of legal matters. To
      • Now, Perl should be a perfunctory check: can we use GPL software for development purposes? Yes, but make sure you don't use the code. Simple.

        Which is precisely why it would never happen in the standard five-foot-wide-ass bureaucracy. Anyone who must have "knowledge" of something must also have "approval" authority, and therefore nothing will ever be accomplished.

        When the ratio of the mass of an organization to its IQ reaches a certain value, the organization stops moving. Period. It's as certain as th

    • It's the same thing where I work. Currently, all engineers are allowed to install whatever programs they want without consulting with anyone, but the management is considering a change to this. Personally, I think it should be as it is; we should be able to assume that professional software engineers know how the licensing works. However, the greatest concern is not that people might listen to pirated mp3s, but that someone by mistake would use GPL'd stuff in the release code. As the company makes proprieta

    • I always evaluate licenses before I download things at work. I have a linux box where just about everything is GPL, and on my (xp) laptop, I can run Belarc Advisor [belarc.com] to see what I have installed. This keeps me and my company out of hot water. I'm probably more laxed at home. In fact, only thing I can think of on my work machine that is commercial that wasn't given to me by work, is X-Win32, which I purchased a license for ...

      • If Lincoln didn't think like RMS

        Sorry to burst your bubble... but (contrary to popular belief) Lincoln's primary motive in issuing the Emancipation Proclamation was not a moral judgement on the institution of slavery. Lincoln's primary motivation was always the preservation of the Union - nothing more, nothing less. Issuing the Emancipation Proclimation was nothing more or less than a strategic decision designed to help end the war.

        In his own words:

        "My paramount object in this struggle is to save th

    • At least for me, this would severly hamper my ability to do work. For example, I sometimes use perl to parse through MAP files. So, if I wanted to download a FREE version of perl and run it, I have to go to some lawyer to explain why I want to use it?

      You exaggerate the hampering. Getting a set of development tools approved is a one time event and should already be in place. I've gotten legal approval for an open source library in a day. I think our lawyer could handle ActiveState Perl for Windows even f
    • ok you get perl cleared, the sysadmin installs it on your machine (as a user in a business environment you of course should not be installing software).

      At this point you have perl, so the sysadmin leaves it on your machine (Because of course, you shouldn't be uninstalling software either as a user, this should be a moot point since the sysadmin should have made doing this impossible for you).
  • ...(with a greedy look) hmm, I see many IPR infringements. Makes hard to decide from where to start? (Echoes of a Devilish laugh fading out)

  • Excellent article, but long... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bc90021 ( 43730 ) * <bc90021&bc90021,net> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:47PM (#7874231) Homepage
    ...and I think that any CXO of a "mainstream" company would have his eyes glazed over by the "Fundamentals of Copyright Law" section.

    I suggest excerpting the article, to start with the "Myths of Open Source Section", as that looks short enough for most CXOs to handle, and then go with the rest if the CXO expresses further interest.
    • I don't really see the point in an article aimed towards lawyers. Lawyers with any training in copyright law are unlikely to misunderstand the various free software licences unless they are paid to do so.

      In any case the article has a major mistake:

      When we speak of Free Software, we are not talking about freeware, i.e., software that is essentially in the public domain. Rather, we are talking about software that is licensed under the precepts of the Free Software Foundation ("FSF") and its flagship GNU G

    • Isn't it interesting that apparently nobody is capable of maintaining attention on anything longer than one paragraph or 30 seconds?

      There are some subjects that cannot be properly explained in an elevator pitch. People would be incredulous if they realized the gargantuan amounts of money that are spent on the basis of a 30 second presentation.

      Want to know why something sucks? It was probably designed with an elevator pitch. Oh, and middle management was probably involved too.
  • The article was targeting those people who actually believe The SCum Group when they say that the GPL is illegal. My impression was that the point was to settle the PHB's fear that Linux would get them into legal trouble. In that, I think the article succeeds admirably.

    But is this really "News for Nerds"? Most of us know about the GPL and BSD Liscenses at least. More like "News for Suits".

  • We need translation to and from legalese. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dexterpexter ( 733748 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @01:51PM (#7874259) Journal
    It should be obligatory that any person involved in deciding this case should have to read a writeup such as this one. All too often those making the decisions are as tech savvy as dung beetles. It has been successfully argued in court that a certain hacker (in the misused sense of the term) could not have possibly been responsible for a breakin because the end IP was not the same as his home one and that "IP addresses are like DNA. Identifiers that cannot be changed." When we have the technologically unsavvy making rulings on technology issues, how can we expect any differently? If this SCO case is won, it will probably be on the backs of people who can't figure out how to attach files to their emails.

    This has been long-needed. We demand that legalese be put into "plain English," should we not expect attorneys to require the same?

    We need Open Source and related licenses explained for dummies (pehaps a book, anyone? Open Source For Dummies), for the those of us knee-deep in all of this who have a grasp of what is going on, and for the legal entities who will ultimately decide the case.

    This case will never be won so long as people believe that SCO can claim .h files, error number listings, and parts of the C standard library because "they look the same as that 'er Linus thingy code", and as long as people continue to equate open source royalty-free software with an attack on capitalism. Perhaps in addition to an Open Source for Dummies, the courts need a Basic Programming for Dummies as well.

    Yes, we need more articles like this one.
  • We're seeing a lot of details come out from each camp that makes more and more clarifications on the angles each (and by each, I mean SCO vs The World) is taking.

    I'm noticing a trend of regurgitated BS coming out of the SCO camp, but intelligent, well-thought arguments coming from the otherside of this battle.

    Makes me wonder why one little company would try to take on the world of opensource? The mindshare that SCO is fighting has to be exponentially larger than anything SCO has,
  • http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200312310 92027900

    After all, they covered this last thursday...

  • Not News (Score:2, Informative)

    by An Anonymous Hero ( 443895 )

    This article was originally published in the March 2003 Journal [nswscl.org.au] of the New South Wales Society for Computers and the Law

    *sigh*

    • Re:Not News (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Soko ( 17987 )
      Lighten up - This is the first I've heard of this article (Okay, I saw it last week on Groklaw [groklaw.net] too) and it's extremely relevant to the issues facing OSS in the coprorate world, especially with S.C.U.M. lurking about. (That's SCO Corporation's Underhanded Management, BTW). Putting this on the Slashdot front page makes sure that "many eyes" we talk about so often have actually seen it. Getting the word out about good, relevant, useful tools (well, once in a while) is one of the reasons I still come here.

      Soko

  • Simple (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Open Source == Communism. What is there to explain?

    Say what you will about Communism itself, but what it failed to do for Soviet Russia, it has succeeded in doing for the Open Source movement.

    Free is good.

  • How about an explanation that works for suits?

    Something like this:

    - Open source and free software is like disk space. You used to pay $1000 for 1GB, today you get 1Gb for $1.

    - This is possible because the Internet has made communications so cheap that the traditional huge costs of making software - design, management and infrastructure - have been largely eliminated.

    - "Closed software" businesses like Microsoft would very much like you to continue paying 1970's prices for software.

    - But the fact is that your competitors are benefiting from high-quality free packages like OpenOffice, Apache, PHP, Linux, and MySQL.

    - You should really be switching your IT budgets from paying for software licenses to paying for support and custom development: this is the best way to keep an edge in the market.

    Every dollar spent on buying overblown commercial software that has a free equivalent is a dollar wasted. Are you sure you want to waste your money?

  • beauty of the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:46PM (#7874555)

    But which is riskier, licensing practices that are constantly being challenged or those that, in their simplicity and effectiveness, have avoided challenge.

    This is why the GPL, BSD, etc licenses are so wonderful. They are aligned with the user's needs. It's really tough to violate them as an end-user. You just download the software, use it, and you never even have to *accept* the license at all!

    Just like anything else in life.. you buy a car, the car company doesn't really care what you do with it. Now, if you take it apart, learn how it works, and start selling copies for half price, they might want to chat with you.. but only a very small percentage of car drivers would do that. Even the ones that do work on their cars do it for their own personal enjoyment. Same with the GPL.. hack as much as you want, just keep your eye on the terms when you start re-distributing.

    Once legal departments start to figure this out, free software will make bigger and bigger inroads. "Wait, you mean with FreeBSD we never have to worry about being targeted by the BSA? Whoa.. *mind blown*".

    • Unless the legal advise isn't on salary. If they are on salary they dont want you targetted by the BSA because then they would have to work.

      If they aren't and are a third party then they WANT you targetted by the BSA because that's how they get paid.
  • This may lead to proper understanding of GPL, BSD and other licenses... Slashdot replies may never be the same again ;)

    • Re:Please: NO!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by JonMartin ( 123209 ) on Sunday January 04, 2004 @03:16PM (#7874787) Homepage
      This may lead to proper understanding of GPL, BSD and other licenses... Slashdot replies may never be the same again ;)

      I wish. Unfortunately the lawyer resorts to the same GPL FUD I see all the time:

      Open source licenses may be broadly categorized into the following types: (1) those that apply no restrictions on the distribution of derivative works (we will call these Non-Protective Licenses because they do not protect the code from being used in non-Open Source applications); and (2) those that do apply such restrictions (we will call these Protective Licenses because they ensure that the code will always remain open/free).
      BZZZT, wrong Lawyer-man. Pointing out that "Protective Licenses ... ensure that the code will always remain open/free" gives the misleading impression that "Non-Protective Licenses" do not. Keeping the code open is not an ongoing function of the license but the community. If I release some code under the BSD license it will always be open as long as someone is willing and able to redistribute it. No one (not even me) can "close" it as long as there is a copy of it available out there. The birth of OpenSSH is a perfect example of this.

      So if "Protective" licenses offer no additional protection for my code than "Non-Protective" licenses, the question is what is the difference and why is Lawyer-man lying about it?

      I know the answer, do you?

      • Re:Please: NO!!! (Score:2, Informative)

        by drquizas ( 681020 )
        It seems to me as though he is referring to derivative works when he says "code" in the last sentence of the quote. I do not profess to have a complete understanding of these licensing issues, but with what I do know it seems as though the quote is fundamentally accurate if this interpretation is used.
      • "(1) those that apply no restrictions on the distribution of derivative works (...) and (2) those that do (...) ensure that the code will always remain open/free)."

        He's talking about derivative works. And derivative works of BSD code can be neither open nor free. This is the core difference between the BSD and GPL "class" of licences, and I find the classification good and the statement accurate.

        Like it or not, this is very very important to corporations. You might not care that someone else is profiting
        • "(1) those that apply no restrictions on the distribution of derivative works (...) and (2) those that do (...) ensure that the code will always remain open/free)."
          He's talking about derivative works.

          I know. I just find the statement "the code will always remain open/free" vague and misleading. I'll explain further with help from the rest of your reply.

          Alternately, they'd like to get compensated in another way - in form of the modifications others have made. The GPL licence is giving them a reason

      • "Open source licenses may be broadly categorized into the following types: (1) those that apply no restrictions on the distribution of derivative works (we will call these Non-Protective Licenses because they do not protect the code from being used in non-Open Source applications); and (2) those that do apply such restrictions (we will call these Protective Licenses because they ensure that the code will always remain open/free)."

        This statement is easily amended to be 100% accurate.

        "Open source licenses m
        • This statement is easily amended to be 100% accurate.
          "Open source licenses may be broadly categorized into the following types: (1) those that apply no restrictions on the distribution of derivative works (we will call these Non-Protective Licenses because they do not protect the code from being used in non-Open Source applications); and (2) those that do apply such restrictions (we will call these Protective Licenses because they do protect the code from being used in non-Open Source applications)."

          C

          • Actually one restricts in another manner than the other. One requires acknowledgements. One requires open code in turn.

            Whether you term it restrict or protect is really a glass half full or glass half empty.

            Basically it's a matter of whether or not your a programmer. If your not a programmer (or a company who produces programs or has the ability to hire programmers) it makes no difference whatsoever. If you are a programmer (or company who produces program or has the ability to hire programmers) then
  • From the article...

    The difference principally arises from so-called license compatibility, but in large measure the differences are principally philosophical and not substantial.

    ...just then RMS' head exploded into a million pieces.

  • Webbink's article gives the open source movement a lot of undeserved credit (GNU Emacs an "open source" program even though it was written initially by RMS and Guy Steele in the pursuit of software freedom years before the name "open source" was ever coined?) and the logic behind some of Webbink's points is in gross conflict with the FSF's stated logic (outside of a license manager program or encryption, copyright licenses are not what allow you to use a program [gnu.org]; of the powers copyright regulates that have

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