Businessweek Recommends License Switch for Linux 548
MadFarmAnimalz writes "BusinessWeek has an article about the perceived threat of patents to linux, citing the SCO case, the opening of OSRM, and the Munich situation as evidence for the veracity of their conclusion that Linux isn't safe. Their solution? Relicense to the BSD license or the Mozilla license. On a positive note, the article's author does link to RMS' article Why Software Should Not Have Owners; good to see Stallman being quoted and linked to in a publication Like BusinessWeek."
No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
The licenses mentioned (patent clauses in GPL acknoweldged) deal with copyright and not patents which although people easily confuse are completely different legal areas.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Funny)
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
There'd be no Linux at all.
Same old story... Come late to the party, then know all about how it's done.
Re:No protection (Score:3, Insightful)
If MBA's had been involved in Linux from the beginning, there'd be nothing to discuss. There'd be no Linux at all.
Same old story with the suits. They like to pretentiously spew so much bullshit from their gullets, like they know what they're doing in this boardroom pissing contest, that someone needs to follow them around with a shovel. They're the same suckers that automatically write checks as pavlovian responses to software obfuscatedly described with catch phrases like "scalable", "robust", and "e-c
Re:No protection (Score:3, Insightful)
Believe me, none of these guys have a national allegiance worth mentioning. How do you think all these Corps are governed by Bermuda and Costa Rica, anyway? Of course, shareholders (you and me) are part of the problem, too. Gotta have a return on our own investments, and won't stand for anything that works towards the long-term economic health of the nation, if it affects dividends or short-term pricing.
Re:No protection (Score:3, Insightful)
MBA's are not busu=iness experts. UI folks are engaged in a behavioral science, with blind-studies and metrics. MBA's saw the "Internet phenomenon", and with their "expertise" created the dot-com bubble.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
James
And of course... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:And of course... (Score:5, Insightful)
James
Re:And of course... (Score:5, Interesting)
James
Re:And of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
Each licence has its own strengths. I think the GPL is a better licence to have in a competitive marketplace, b
Re:No protection (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No protection (Score:5, Funny)
If it was centralized then decentralize it.
If it was decentralized then centralize it.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Funny)
As a business man I can confirm this and would like to add that we would also like it if you would mail us your life savings at the same time.
Thanks
Ralphie
Re:No protection (Score:4, Funny)
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
The real beauty of the GPL is that it encourages collaboration and sharing with the side effect that forking is discouraged. GNU/Linux is becoming the commodity OS precisely because of the GPL.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Say you wanted a different version of Linux that did something differently. So you make the changes, however much they are and you donate them back to Linux.
But the Linus doesn't have to accept those changes. Or he can pick and choose which portions he thinks are good.
But since you donated your modifications back, you are free to use those modifications to release your own version.
In a manner of speaking, there already is a fork of Linux. Except it's a fork that is built into the current release instead of a completely separate fork. I'm talking, of course, about SELinux from the NSA.
What switching to the BSD license would really encourage is everyone else, for example, Microsoft, to be free to use the code for their own commercial purposes.
By switching to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own closed and proprietary version of Linux. For example, they could use the Linux code to enhance Windows and make it able to run any and all Linux programs available.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No protection (Score:3, Informative)
The GPL doesn't prevent forking
Round 1. True.
Round 2. Pretty much true.
Round 3. Significant amount of merging of Round 1 forks.
Round 4. More merging.
With a constant forking rate, GPL should eventually reach a smallish number of forks. The GPL does prevent someone from holding turf just because of a few improvements. If they're actually good, in general, "everybody" will have them.
The "Unix Wars" scenario is a result of everybody finding some way, any way, to make th
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to buying forked software (say Mac OS X) and then having to wait for the developer to fix bugs in the portions of code that are binary only.
In other words, the help is not in prevention of forks, but rather in making it easy to merge them back.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Informative)
What I meant was that if Linux switched to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own proprietary version of Linux. Under the BSD license, such a release would not have to be open at all.
They already did that with the TCP stack from what I understand. They incorporated the BSD stack in their code and their use of it is not open at all.
Re:No protection (Score:3, Insightful)
I still don't see a problem. The original code would still be free. Just because Microsoft releases a proprietary version of a free OS doesn't mean anyone is obligated to use it. Anyway, that's essentially what Apple did with BSD, built a proprietary OS on top of an open source infrastructure. In the main, I'd say
Re:No protection (Score:3, Insightful)
Market position and monopoly play a more important role here. Microsoft would happily take Linux and then patent all competing distros out of existence.
In the main, I'd say both Apple and BSD benefited from the arrangement
It's clear that Apple kept their head above water but I'm not so sure that BSD was affected one way or another. BSD won its free pass when AT&T was sent packing.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you have blinders on.
The problem isn't that the original code is free, or isn't free, or that MS's version is or isn't free. The problem is that THERE IS A FORK THAT WILL NEVER BE ALLOWED TO MERGE BACK.
A major point of Free software is to reduce the amount of wheel reinvention. Everybody gets to see and use everybody else's code. BSD-to-commercial forks provide a major impediment to that.
So what damage accrued to BSD or TCP users as a consequence?
MS TCP-users were not able to take advantage of the advances to the BSD stack, and are now stuck with a crippled version. This is the whole point.
Re:No protection (Score:4, Interesting)
Please remove your head from the clouds.
This is not a battle which is at the capitulation point of a killing stroke. Microsoft would love to have a chance to sink their programmers into Linux. They would devote 250% manpower to it. Within a year Microsoft would patent every single functional feature which they add to Linux. They would patent a "window manager integrated with a kernel" by stuffing KDE into the kernel. Within two years Linus and the FSF would receive a cease and desist order for violation of patents.
So what bad came out of the for the BSD folks?
The BSD folks are poster children and special cases. They were granted their immunity when they beat the AT&T suit. BSD won the AT&T suit only because of its social and political connections. No modern programmer could even pray for such a blessed immunity.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
As opposed to what, picking a development model that forces distributions to fork? 2.6 is the active development kernel, and distributions are now responsible for putting together a stable kernel.
This will cause more situations similar to what Red Hat has done with their heavily customized 2.4 kernel. Distributions will have their own heavily patched kernels that can no longer be easily migrated to the current vanilla versions. There are several distributions with the resources to do this by themselves, and the smaller ones will probably band together to do it as well. If that's not a fork, it's the closest thing to it and will probably lead to a fork in the future.
It's not the BSD license that encourages forks. There were (are) two factors:
-Commerical forks can get specs on hardware that open source ones can't. Since they can't give the code of the driver back to the community, they must fork.
-The BSDs (not the license, but the OSes) are designed as complete operating systems, with a userspace and a kernel in one package. This encourages forking because it's less modular than Linux.
It's not the licenses that do it, it's the unique position the BSDs are in. There are BSD licensed projects which do not fork, such as Python, which uses a license similar to BSD. By similar, I mean it explicitly says you can fork, keep the code secret, and sell the results. Python hasn't forked because there's no motivation for people to do it.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux has many forks.
Main-line linux, as on kernel.org
Red Hat Linux, with a modified (forked) kernel.
Various patch sets that haven't (yet) made it into the main line.
By applying different combinations of patch sets, you can have more different possible kernels, this is before you start configuring, than there are places to put those kernels.
The critical difference is that Red Hat 2.6 is a fork from the main-line 2.6 not a 2.6 fork of Red Hat 2.4. Forks that aren't worth keeping up with just wither and die. Linux gives the outward appearance of not forking, because there is about as much merging as there is forking.
The irony here, of course... (Score:5, Funny)
Which is exactly why there are like 50something different forked BSD systems, each of them unpredictably different from the next. Oh, wait, no.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Switching from the GPL to BSD or another license would actually reduce the protection. It doesn't provide any incentive to license the patents for all users. Who do you think is going to develop all of this software if only big companies are able to distribute it legally? We'd be back to proprietary software and proprietary licensing.
Bruce
Privatization wet dream (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead, Businessweek, being what they are, is in the business of fantasizing about free giveaways to large companies. Sort of the Enron model of capitalism. What could Businessweek readers like more than a massive donation of free programming efforts into the private coffers of big business? Well, I suppose they like massive corporate welfare even more (the Haliburton model); but they'd certainly be happy to accept the free money of "privatized" Free Software.
The patent issue is OF COURSE completely irrelevant here. Or maybe BSD-licensed software would be slightly more vulnerable to patent suits. But the difference is small, in any case. The main patent danger is big companies spending a lot more on lawyers than Free Software developers possibly can--and quite independent of the "merits" of patent claims, getting injunctions against Free Software.
Re:Privatization wet dream (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No protection (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming the company is distributing its open source derived software, the GPL requires public disclosure of the original open source software and any derivations, which would give patent holders evidence of infringement.
The BSD license, however, lets the company distribute their product without acknowledging any open source content. They can keep all their code secret. This places a greater burden on the patent holder to prove that a patent is being infringed at all.
I think this is the "protection" the article refers to.
Re:No protection (Score:5, Informative)
Original or revised BSD? (Score:3, Informative)
Under the revised BSD license (which is very similar to the X11 [x.org] license and is what I am assuming [gnu.org] is what you are refering to as the "MIT license") you need only mention copyrights in documentation.
Under the original BSD license you HAVE to mention the copyrights and contributors when the program is used or when the program is advertised.
I wrote to BW, and said this. (Score:5, Interesting)
The GPL has rarely been to court precisely because its implications are clear. Violators settle quickly because the alternative is to stop shipping product. Grumblings about "murky" license terms amount to nothing more than sour grapes.
In any case, changing Linux's license is a practical impossibility. Hundreds of people and companies own bits of it, and all would have to agree to a change. Linux is condemned to retain the source of its success indefinitely.
Re:I wrote to BW, and said this. (Score:3, Interesting)
Simple BSD allows rape (Score:4, Insightful)
The BSD license allows you to use the code without ever having to give back. Exactly the way business uses it.
The only thing you need to know about BSD is that Microsoft favours it.
Re:Simple BSD allows rape (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple BSD allows rape (Score:5, Insightful)
I write just about everything under a 3-clause BSD license. Do you know why? Because when I write something and give it away, it's really free to do whatever you want with (except of course claim it's your own).
While some people think it's "rape", there are many of us who write code, that picked a BSD license because we want anybody to be able to use our code without restrictions other than claiming it's their own. So software can be a true gift without any "strings" attached. So it isn't "rape".
Just the opinion of a programmer who writes BSD-licensed software...
Re:Simple BSD allows rape (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't you think it's a bigger gift if you ensure that not only your work, but extensions of your work are freely available to the community too?
Re:Simple BSD allows rape (Score:3, Informative)
Well, I guess it's hard to rape an absolute slut, if we follow the metaphor.
"there are many of us who write code, that picked a BSD license because we want anybody to be able to use our code without restrictions other than claiming it's their own"
And there are many of us who write code, that picked the GPL because we want anybody to be able to use our code without restrictions, other than claiming it as, or treating it as
Re:Simple BSD allows rape (Score:3, Informative)
Anybody can USE you code under the GPL as well.
What the GPL limits is how you can redistribute that code. The GPL prevents some asshole corporation from taking your highly successful open source tool, making it closed, breaking interoperability, and screwing you with your own code.
I''m not try
All your examples are OK w/ GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Red Hat can use GPL code.
Government can use GPL code.
The Red Cross can use GPL code.
Excluding parasitic evildoers is good.
Now, go read the Halloween document [opensource.org] collection.
Re:All your examples are OK w/ GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
Of cause they can all use GPL code too, so what. Does that make the BSD license evil? Not a bit, BSD code is also free, is also written by open source hackers. Tell me again why BSD code is evil, and this time back it up with reasoned well thought out arguments if you can. Or is it that you only recognise one style of freedom, automatically condemning anyone who doesn't share your world view?
And how exactly are they supposed to support your accusation? BSD
Re:GPL affects patents issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but this is not the case. In the U.S., patents even effect use. Use is clearly given by the law as one of the acts for which the patent holder can bring suit. You are liable for patent infringement by software that you write and use privately in your own home.
Yes, it's a broken system. We have to fix the law.
Bruce
Re:GPL affects patents issues (Score:4, Informative)
Thanks
Bruce
Re:Bruce - You made his point. (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, I think you are missing something. The court found that the univeristy work was infringing because it obliquely served a commercial purpose of the university such as attracting students. There didn't have to be a direct relationship and the non-profit status was held to be immaterial.
Analogously, as somebody who has upon occassion worked as a programmer, my private programming at home could arguably serve the purpose of increasing my experience, and thus my value as a programmer. Thus it would
In other news.... (Score:5, Insightful)
MOD PARENT UP (Score:5, Informative)
besides, this has already been discussed at Groklaw
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040814
Less incentive to develop (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Less incentive to develop (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole thread seems based on the premise that you actually could, in some way, relicense Linux under the BSD license. This isn't as easy as you might think.
Relicensing checklist:
It's widely considered that even Linus Himself could not push through a license change. No need to worry about a corporation doing it.
If you want something under the BSD license, you might want to use BSD.
Re:Less incentive to develop (Score:5, Insightful)
it may be true for a minority of people who want to kill, but it means that EVERYONE loses the "freedom" to feel secure against random deadly attack.
taking it further, the most free society is one with no laws whatsoever, but in such a society freedoms can be easily lost.
the GPL is like "Civilisation for Software" - it may mean you lose some freedoms, but in return the freedoms it gives are protected.
Re:Less incentive to develop (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Less incentive to develop (Score:5, Insightful)
It's actually a very different, very critical point: if there were no GPL, Red Hat, Novell, and others could very well release their own binary-only kernels/utilities and the Linux world would fragment like the Unix world. It's the GPL that's holding the Linux community together.
For instance, say that SuSE gets 90% of the Linux "marketshare." They then start introducing changes in the kernel and standard software stack which other vendors (hardware/software) rely on, due to their market dominance (sound familiar?). However, we note that, in order to be Linux and use the Linux kernel/software stack, they must release the changes back to the world under the GPL. Thus, Red Hat, Gentoo, Debian, and others all can stay 100% compatible with SuSE despite SuSE setting the de facto Standard. If SuSE comes up with Licensing 6.0 and tries to coerce their users into it, the users have much less of a barrier to switching away to other Linux distros because of this compatibility! Thus SuSE's power is checked despite monopoly position.
Now, there is fragmentation in the Linux community due to different distros relying on different software, and having slightly different systems and configurations. This can be mitigated, however, by following the Linux Standard Base, and we must encourage our distros to follow the standard and work to develop the standard to prevent this fragmentation. It should be a fairly easy problem to fix, of a much different order than the problem with the binary unix compatibility fragmentation.
Re:Less incentive to develop (Score:3, Insightful)
It's only "*even more free*" in the short term. As soon as some punk improves it and closes the source the whole thing becomes much less free.
Which I imagine would be particularly irritating if they took something you'd written, added a function that you really wanted but didn't have the time / ability to code, and then deprived you of the right to use the
Re:Despite this, BSD is still here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Leave me alone (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Leave me alone (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry if our licenses arn't corporate friendly.
Re:hmmm, that's cruel (Score:3, Insightful)
A library is simply a convenient way to reuse code by having a set of functions that can be called from other separate programs. If you don't want to agree to the stipulations of the GPL, you're free to write your own library. Your last statement doesn't even make sense. No one forced th
All your software are belong to us! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:All your software are belong to us! (Score:5, Insightful)
In this world, if you get something for free (as in beer), you should be able to do anything you want with it. They can't understand the idea of nonmonetary compensation. The idea of, "You can use it, but if you try to do anything else with it you have to let us use your version, too." comes across as some sort of wacky bait-and-switch. The whole thing gets broken into two parts:
1. It's yours. Take it.
2. No, wait, WE WANT YOUR SOUL! SOUUUULLLS! RARRRRRRRRR!
(Of courrse, it doesn't help that MySQL AB really does try to do the above.)
I'm sure it's frightening for lots of business folks. They don't like it when they can't pretend to understand what's going on.
Re:All your software are belong to us! (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly the business world seems quite happy with the concept that if you pay for it you certainly can't do anything you want with it. Witness software licensing, the RIAA, and many other practices that amount to "You bought it? So what, you can only do what we tell you to do with it". It seems odd that while this is perfectly acceptable practice, if they get something for free they can't comprehend that there might still be the same sort of strings attached.
Jedidiah.
Re:All your software are belong to us! (Score:4, Informative)
This is not necessarily directed at you, but I think a lot of people don't fully understand how MySQL AB operates in regards to copyright / GPL.
MySQL AB offers the MySQL code to all comers under the GPL. If you want to use the GPL'd code under the terms of the GPL, it's right there waiting for you.
If you wish to use the MySQL code in a way that is incompatible with the GPL, you have the option of purchasing a non-GPL license.
MySQL AB accomplishes this by requiring anyone who wishes to contribute code to the authoritative codebase to assign copyright to MySQL AB. (I have not read the exact verbage used by MySQL AB, but I will for a future project examining their business model.)
This assignment allows MySQL AB to offer GPL'd code under non-GPL terms for a license fee. After all, MySQL AB is the unencumbered copyright holder, so they can offer different terms to different people.
The community does still retain a "right to revolution" if we so chose. We could take the MySQL code and create OurSQL or whatever. The GPL gives us that right. The question becomes how many developers and end-users would be willing to abandon MySQL AB and follow that fork.
- Neil Wehneman
Re:All your software are belong to us! (Score:3, Insightful)
And of course:
But how would changing licenses help? (Score:3, Insightful)
Changing licenses won't prevent the use of litigation to suppress open source tools which do the same things as commercial products.
Not even an article (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft should switch to the GPL.
Hey, someone submit this to Slashdot. Here's an idea for the text. "Slashdot has an article suggesting Microsoft should switch to the GPL."
Re:Not even an article (Score:3, Insightful)
Not the most likely thing to happen, but still a lot more likely than Linux switching to a BSD license. Don't forget that for Linux to switch license, every single contributor must agree. One person already said he wouldn't accept it. Neither will I. The code I have contributed so far is only a few lines, but I'm sure enough people will disagree with this suggestion, that if you remove all the code we have contributed, what remains will not be a working kernel.
Besides
Why don't they mention FreeBSD, OpenBSD, etc? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or is it simply because they've never heard of it due to lack of marketing?
Re:buzzwords (Score:4, Interesting)
buzzwords. buzzwords. buzzwords.
BusinessWeek's readers are businesspeople.
Business is about making money.
There are two ways to make money.
1. Visionaries and geniuses can create buzzwords.
2. Everyone else can jump on the buzzwords as soon as they realize that the buzzwords are buzzwords.
BusinessWeek caters to the second group because it's a market several orders of magnitude larger.
buzzwords. buzzwords. buzzwords.
buzzwords. buzzwords. buzzwords.
Linux is a buzzword. *BSD is not.
This means that all the buzzword people jumped on Linux.
This guarantees that in the future, Linux will have more buzzwords than BSD.
buzzwords. buzzwords. buzzwords.
buzzwords. buzzwords. buzzwords.
The next important rule with buzzwords is that you have to take a convoluted path to get to your buzzwords.
This is the rule that explains why we have a group of people working hard at developing Linux for the Macintosh as well as a group of people working hard at developing Darwin for the PC.
buzzwords. buzzwords. buzzwords.
buzzwords. buzzwords. buzzwords.
(** note: The author realizes that there are indeed practical reasons to make many of the decisions mentioned above. In fact, he has jumped on a couple of the bandwagons mentioned above, both for practical reasons and because of buzzword bandwagoning. The problem is systemic, has been around for thousands of years, and can only be solved by the GPL.)
Not going to happen. (Score:5, Interesting)
a) Anybody with significant (as in more than 20-30 lines or so) contributions to the kernel give their approval for the switch, and it ain't gonna happen because even if Linus went for it, Alan Cox is very much pro-GPL and has large chunks of code all over the kernel
or:
b) Somebody strip out or rewrite all parts of the kernel copyrighted by people who objected to the license change, which in the end would probably amount to an effective rewrite of the whole thing.
No can do! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, then the BSD licensed stuff would be copied back into the GPL'd fork, as is allowed.
Result - A full-featured GPL'd version, and a non-GPL'd version without all the features that it can't include as it would be a violation of the GPL.
In other words, why bother? It ain't broke - don't try to "fix" it.
Logistics (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like a headache and a half to me.
idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
License Change (Score:5, Informative)
1. Would be stupid.
2. Won't happen.
Lamest.... article.... ever.... (Score:5, Insightful)
and in light that this author decided to publish an outdated article - he continues to talk about how IBM is being sued for copyright infringement, while the hunter is now the hunted in the SCO vs IBM case with IBM arguing (very well) for partial summary judgement that IBM is 100% in the clear on Linux while its SCO who is now clearly in violation of copyright law...
but mostly because his very first premise is utterly false - "How does software owned by everyone and by no one survive in a world where copyrights and patents shape the legal landscape?"..
this article is lame...
Dear Mr. Wildstrom.
The GPL has NOTHING to do with your precious IP or ownership of software. The GPL is ONLY about two simple things - distribution and use. Just like EVERY SINGLE OTHER software license.
It is obvious you do not understand this. I suggest you read the two [groklaw.net] latest [groklaw.net] court documents from IBM, who are doing two things you claim the GPL does not allow...
1. claiming ownership of their GPL licensed software and
2. are asking the courts to prevent a copyright infringer from reditributing their software without their permission.
The easiest way to understand how the GPL works and why it works is to read those court documents - because its heart is exactly what the GPL is about - controlled distribution of owned software by the copyright holder.
As my history teacher was fond of saying to the kids that wrote their papers the night before as they watched The A-Team - "please grasp the concept, then rewrite your paper".
Defeating the point of Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
The logical complications of changing the license to BSD would be a nightmare. Individual committers could file suit against FSF, or whoever might "own" the newly licensed code, to get a court order for their code to be removed if it's not licensed under the GPL.
Of course, somebody else could just fork Linux under the GPL again.
How would a switch protect against patents? (Score:4, Interesting)
I do see how it would make it more "commercial" friendly, but IMO, that's all it would do. If it were licensed under BSD, then companies such as MS, Apple, etc. could take the kernel, use it, change it or whatever w/o showing the changes... just like Apple has done with much of the FreeBSD code.
Asking the wrong questions (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
How does software owned by everyone and by no one survive in a world where copyrights and patents shape the legal landscape?
Shouldn't that be:
how can copyrights and patents survive in a world where software is owned by everyone and by no one?
Hey, Businessweek, stuff it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a clue for Businessweek and the rest of that crowd: Most OSS developers started their projects to be free from the advice and oversight of the business community. You're barking up the wrong tree.
OSS developers are professionals, they're business people themselves quite often. They're very good at what they do and have thought through the licensing issues a long time ago. You can't tell them what to do and it's never been about market share.
If you don't like the GPL, then don't use it. It's your loss. I think about a 100 companies chipping in to make improvements to OpenOffice. They get back a product that saves them thousands, maybe even millions in license fees. I'd call that a pretty good investment. Yes, other companies and people that didn't pay will get those improvements and savings as well. Too bad. You still saved millions, it's still a good deal and economically more efficient. Thousands of companies all paying for the same software that does the same thing is economic insanity.
Invest in sanity, invest in OSS.
Slashdot Recommends License Switch for MSOffice (Score:5, Funny)
This is a very poor article (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, the author argues in favor for the BSD or the MPL licenses as it would clear up ambiguities and be less restrictive. Obviously, he doesn't say how. If he did then the statement would make no sense. Again a non-biased person would question how exactly they would benefit from switching their software to those licenses. The truth of the matter that the author neglects to mention is that it doesn't. It does benefit business that would like to use the code for free. The aspect/goal being to not submit any changes to the benefit of the community that provided said company with the code in the first place. Seeing as this is Business Week I concede to that view point.
The article in and of itself is a horrible piece of advice for business especially the nimble startups. I love Linux and Open-Source but I love money more. This article advice would do nothing to further your business or protect you at all. Even after all of this I'm not biased. If Microsoft could provide what open-source did even at a small fee I would pay. This isn't the case and for small to medium companies it just doesn't make sense. Also, if I was a software shop and could use some open-source to further my business for more money I would.
I could play into that whole "I'll sue you because you're violating my patent" but then I would of probably paid SCO a $699 license fee and or bought Microsoft software. Still, my risk is the same. So if this is about Business; then Business Week and the author of the article have done a poor job in telling me how exactly to save or make money. There are too many cases of people/companies profiting off of free software than not. Simply, someone who is non-biased and comes across this article has been disserviced.
If someone starts a magazine company that provided useful Business information with NO bias I'll subscribe.
Flawed assumption (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact the article has it 100% backwards. Rather than Linux switching licenses to appeal more to the business crowd (which of course ain't gonna happen), business should start thinking of software in terms of software as a service -- not a web service, but a service like electricity or plumbing. Once that happens and businesscritters start realizing that you can use Linux in your enterprise without scaring off your employees or having to release all your internal software into the public domain, the arguments over lower TCO will start to take hold.
ABSOLUTELY CANNOT SWITCH TO BSD LICENSE (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the BSD license if just fine. That isn't the issue. The issue is that in order to relicense the kernel under BSD, so much code which could not be relicensed would have to be ripped out that you would not have a kernel left.
So, while I can't say whether or not, generally speaking, the suggestion to switch licenses is an unwise one, I can definately say that it's a totally ignorant suggestion. Saying "relicense linux" is like saying "delete linux".
Re:ABSOLUTELY CANNOT SWITCH TO BSD LICENSE (Score:3, Insightful)
"This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, OR (at your option) ANY LATER VERSION"
If another later version of the GPL was published and used, which was more in-line with the BSD license, would the desired effect not be possible?
My favorite line (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly a model of clarity? It's one of the few license agreements that IANAL can understand without legal help!
Here's another precious quote:
Where "some people" == "Darl McBride", apparently.
Sean
Businessweek.. (Score:3, Funny)
(Speak in the voice of James Earl Jones form maximim effect)
Take heed developers... Businessweek know their shit when it comes to Linux and FOSS...
Nick
I wrote a rebuttal to this on a mailing list (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is burdened with too much intellectual-property uncertainty for
many companies to embrace and develop it further
This entire column is complete bollocks as I will now explain. (FLOSS = Free Libre and Open Source Software - remember folks, brush and FLOSS
daily!)
The open-source movement has had a remarkable run of success that has seen software such as the Linux operating system and the Apache Web server emerge as major challenges to Microsoft (MSFT ). However, the movement is now facing a crisis. At its heart is a question that has been around from the very beginning: How does software owned by
everyone and by no one survive in a world where copyrights and patents shape the legal landscape?
The same way it's always done - by being more reliable, more agile, better maintained and better supported. I'm also not sure how the author thinks that open source is not copyrighted - all of it is by definition.
then owned by AT&T. Intellectual-property questions about Linux came to the forefront after the SCO Group (SCOX ), which acquired the Unix
trademarks, launched a series of lawsuits against alleged infringers of its rights.
Incorrect - SCO does NOT own the trademarks to Unix.
POTENTIAL INFRINGEMENTS. The central case, a 2003 suit against IBM (IBM ), an important corporate promoter of Linux, has degenerated into
a messy contract dispute with no intellectual-property issues left on the table. SCO's threats to sue companies that use Linux have almost entirely evaporated.
Because they were and are lies. But the author is mistaken. There are "intellectual property" issues aplenty left on the table. IP - which is a lazy and meaningless term that conglomerates at least three kinds of entirely different sets of laws on intangible rights - is going to bite SCO severely because IBM is now suing it for distributing Linux without a license.
But now another problem has surfaced. Open Source Risk Management, a new outfit that indemnifies its customers against infringement claims, found in a review of Linux code that the operating system potentially infringes on 283 patents. Although IBM declared it would make no
effort to enforce its 60 patents involved, some are held by Linux foes, including 27 by Microsoft.
Patents granted in its infinite stupidity by the US patent office. Maths should not be patented.
The potential patent infringements pose no immediate threat to Linux. Such disputes typically take years to resolve, and courts rarely issue
injunctions against alleged infringers. But the uncertainty is taking a toll. In the most significant response to date, the city government
in Munich, Germany, has suspended a massive transition of desktop computers from Microsoft Windows to Linux, pending clarification of
the patent situation (see BW Online, 8/9/04, "Will Legal Fears Freeze the Penguin?").
Munich is going ahead.
But open-source proponents also have to get their own intellectual-property house in order.
Again - what is meant by intellectual property here? Does he mean copyrights? All FLOSS is copyrighted. Does he mean trademarked? The
brands that matter are trademarked. Does he mean patented? Sorry but the vast majority of FLOSS developers don't really care whether the US
allows the patenting of maths or not. If he's talking about "ownership" then he's wrong. As the SCO episode demonstrated, every single line of Linux can be accounted for - unlike many closed-source vendors.
The development of open-source software is increasingly dominated by corporate interests that, one way or another, want to use Linux,
Apache, and other open-source products to make money.
No - it's the other way around. Businesses have to decide why and how they are going to use open source software to survive. Plenty already have decided to use it to make money and give b
BSD License -- An Investment POLICY (Score:3, Interesting)
What has always struck me about the widsom of the BSD license was that it was a way for Regents of the University of California to make available work that was presumably owned by the State of California for the benefit of all commercial entities -- the lion's share of which are/were? in Silicon Valley.
But the work of tens of thousands of individuals across the world, unaffiliated except by a mutual common interest, would not be protected by such a BSD license. The GPL is better suited for that, as several other posters have noted.
Business week hack = troll (Score:3, Informative)
wrong problem, wrong solution (Score:3, Insightful)
nevermind (Score:3)
A step in the wrong direction (Score:3, Insightful)
All of the examples cited by businessweek are problems which come up because Linux represents a new way of doing things where the abuse of the copyrights and patents system is the problemn. Linux remains a growing and evolving product because it IS under the GPL license and not the BSD/Mozilla/etc licenses.
Companies want to think in terms of: "If we know something the competitors don't, we have an advantage. Let's screw our competitors and make all the money ourselves." That kind of thinking goes against the idea of OpenSource and the GPL due to the requirement to make source available in the event that the original source is modified.
Linksys tried to pull that stunt when they first started and faced a backlash. Companies see this backlash, this reversal of the command chain where the customers are telling them what they can and cannot be doing to be a threat and a risk.
The GPL code is what keeps Linux open and free for all to enjoy. If the licensed changed, then you will begin to see variants of the Linux Kernel which only one company supported because it was modified to work in a certain way. No review of that kernel is possible anymore because the code is locked and the customer is now, once again, at the mercy of the company for patches, security updates, and fixes.
I'm sure that businessweek and the respective folk who think it is the way to go think that way in all honesty believing it will make Linux better... but this is only because this makes it better for them and them alone.
The GPL license under which Linux is licensed is the solution to the current problem with Copyrights and Patents abuse by large companies in not honouring the spirit of the Copyright and Patents agreements: The eventual release of the rights to the public domain.
Linux is available to both businesses and the public, but is maintained and controlled by the Open Source community AND the Business community. Perhaps _some_ businesses don't like that kind of shared control...
The GPL is like garlic. (Score:4, Insightful)
Many would surely like the GPL to be lifted so they could steal all the code and then make the authors pay for their own (then incompatible) code!
The reason i dont like the BSD license is that i would have a hard time coughing up dough to buy a product i had a part in and that the one who took the code made incompatible with my original code, deliberatly! I dont like its "please rimjob me twice" kind of message.
GPL protects (Score:3, Informative)
I have been working with software companies or writing software directly for over 20 years. I cannot tell you the number of great software products that have been lost because somebody thought they were "protecting" it by putting non-freedom licensing on it.
So if software ideas are important... if YOUR software idea is important (even if you don't think it's all that important), you'd be foolish to not put it under the GPL. It's a good way to keep good software from being lost forever.
No, our bases don't belong to you! (Score:3, Informative)
witness the SCOasaur go through its death spasms, choking on the GPL's dust!
Businesses, as always, you face a choice--innovate, or die!
Quoting RMS... (Score:3, Interesting)
They will only quote him when it serves to illustrate their point - in this case that these 'looney' 'commie' GNU / OSS folks are out of their minds when it comes to solid business practice.
I would say - wait for the IBM/SCO GPL ruling before jumping to any conclusions.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
James
Re:DUPE (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure I understand the "advantages" the writer is laying out. A BSD'ed Linux would be cut off from a lot of the improvements that come back whenever someone modifies it to suit their own needs. Doing so would also lead to an immediate fork, wherein improvements could not be exchanged between the two branches. Finally, knowing that your
Re:hail (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So, Invent Something Better and Patent It (Score:3)
You _CAN_ patent ideas now, apparently. That's the whole problem of software patents. It is completely possible to write a patent that describes a mechanism for "delayed reaction to user input" in vague enough terms to pass patent muster, but not cover a specific implementation of same. Since Patent Is Not Copyright(tm), you don't have to show actual code, just a reasonable enough block diagram of how it works.
Look at Amazon.Com and "one-click". The whole point of Amazon