Novell Worries About GPL v3 157
An anonymous reader writes "In its annual report for the fiscal year ended October 31, 2006, Novell expressed concerns over how the new version of the GPL may affect their business. Microsoft might stop distributing Suse coupons if the GPL version 3 interferes with their agreement or puts Microsoft's patents at risk, ultimately causing Novell's business and operating results to be adversely affected."
Being paranoid is S.O.P in these things. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not quite "nothing to see here, move along" but definitely not a tabloid headline.
Re:Wow, Novell is worried??? (Score:5, Insightful)
oh no! (Score:2, Insightful)
Why worry? (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why worry? (Score:5, Insightful)
as soon as is practical.
These tools are written and maintained by RMS et al. who have an idealogical commitment to GPL 3 and Open Source and dont really care about market share etc.
So if Suse want to distribute a linux minus the tools, the compilers and a major desktop environment good luck to them.
Incidently there is a business principle so basic I dont think it is even mentioned in self help management books
Re:GPL2 vs GPL3 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why worry? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you joking? There is probably more ongoing effort put into improvements to GCC than almost any other project I can think of. There are a lot of people (at various big companies) whose sole job is to improve GCC. The main advantage of GPL OSS over BSD is that you get continuing improvements from other players. Having to maintain all of that yourself in a fork means you might as well go with BSD licensed software in the first place. At least them you're not specifically generating ill will while losing the main benefit.
Re:open (Score:3, Insightful)
Democracy is democracy, with or without laws...i generally don't really care about laws...
That they dealt with Microsoft is not the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:oh no! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why worry? (Score:4, Insightful)
GPLv3. None of these companies are selling GCC. They use it as a tool. They don't want submarine patents in it any more than individual users do. It takes effort to switch to a non-standard fork and download from a new place. It takes effort to approve a new license within a company. Approving a new license, however, is a one time stamp from legal, while switching versions to non-standard ones has to be done for every project and has to be done by engineers within the company, who probably would prefer to stick with the RMS version. I'm betting if it comes down to a fork it will be Novell left out in the cold by themselves while almost everyone else goes GPLv3.
Re:oh no! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A few reasons... (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's not counter-productive, because having something merely called Free, but which actually isn't, doesn't do us any good anyway!
Personally, I don't give a shit about "Open Source" software. "Free Software," on the other hand, is important, as is keeping it Free. If those companies wanted to have their product be restricted, they should have used something BSD-licensed instead.
Re:oh no! (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes. because Novell doesn't employ the Ximian team, and The Ximian guys don't actually contribute anything because they're too busy leeching, right? Because we're happy with simply berrating MS over
And they surely never pointed out that they actually own the patets SCO was makig so noise much noise about, and they never counter sued. No, that was all IBM.
And a large company backing Linux surely can't possibly help Open Source, right?
Frankly, I can't see how anyoe who claims to value freedom can support the GPL3 and all its restrictions. "you're free to do what you please, unless its something I don't like", methinks it's time forcertain people to re-evaluate their definition of "Freedom" only to find that it differs wildly from the actual one.