GPLv3, Linux and GPLv2 Compatibility

April 14, 2007 1 Comment

Allison continues her fantastic coverage of the GPLv3 process in this post.

A third possibility is that the Linux kernel developers will decide that it’s not worth the hassle and just accept the GPLv3. I suspect that this is what the FSF is hoping will happen. Depending on the changes in the next two drafts of the GPLv3, it still might. But, it’s not looking likely that the kernel developers will yield. Frankly, if I were in the kernel developers shoes, I wouldn’t either. The GPLv3 serves to further the goals of the FSF, but the current draft actually hinders Linus’ goals and the goals of Linux in general.

Another possibility, complete speculation on my part, is that the Linux Foundation becomes more than just a loose consortium of companies sponsoring Linux kernel development. It becomes the copyright holder for the Linux kernel, not taking copyright assignments from contributors like the FSF, but copyright licenses like Apache does, so the kernel developers still hold their copyright on the code. The Linux Foundation releases a license with basically the same terms as the GPLv2, but without the legal ambiguities, obscure language, and anachronisms. Like the GPL, this license is copyleft. Like the GPL, this license requires the release of modified versions under the same license. This license clearly defines the concepts of linking and modified works, making it easier for Linux distributors to be sure that their segmented distribution trees are in compliance. Over time, more and more projects currently released under the GPL adopt the Linux license, because it is more legally precise and more comprehensible to the average developer than either the GPLv2 or GPLv3. Eventually, Linux distributions switch over to the Linux license, leaving only a small branch of GPLv3 (or v4 or v5) code to be downloaded separately (if the user chooses to do so).

It had occurred to me that it might be nice if the FSF did a sort of updated draft of the GPLv2 that included very minor improvements while not introducing the major fundamental shifts of the GPLv3. It’s clear they wouldn’t do this now, as it would hinder the adoption of the GPLv3. I hadn’t thought of the possibility of someone else improving on the GPLv2. Seems unlikely, but maybe just the thought of it will smooth some things over in the GPLv3 process.

–jeremy

Filed under FSF, GPL, GPLv3, Linux, Open Source

Note to content owners: DRM doesn’t work

April 9, 2007 Leave a comment

Mark Shuttleworth recently posted about some of the follies of DRM. I’ve said in the past that I think it’s possible for DRM to have a place, but when it gets in the way of the consumer it’s just stupid. When people can’t legitimately pay you for something, they’ll just rout around you. Most people are honest and do want to pay, so punishing them for the mistakes of a vast minority who will never pay is silly. From the article:

The truth is also that, as the landscape changes, different business models come and go in their viability. Those folks who try to impose analog rules on digital content will find themselves on the wrong side of the tidal wave. Sorry for you. It’s necessary to innovate (again, sometimes!) and stay ahead of the curve, perhaps even being willing to cannibalize your own existing business – though to be honest cannibalizing someone else’s is so much more appealing.

Someone will find a business model that doesn’t depend on the old way of thinking, and if it is not you, then they will eat you alive. You will probably sue them, but this will be nothing but a defensive action as the industry reforms around their new business model, without you. And by the industry I don’t mean your competitors – they will likely be in the same hole – but your suppliers and your customers. The distributors of content are the ones at risk here, not the creators or the consumers.

He’s 100% right. We’re reaching the point where the average person is sick of the current situation. You have the RIAA suing people, formats that only work on some devices and myriad arbitrary technical limitations that aggravate and confuse the average consumer. Someone will make it easy. Someone will come up with a new business model. That someone will make an absolute boat load of money… and people will love them for it. The revolution will be televised – I just don’t think it will be wrapped in DRM.

–jeremy

Filed under DRM

Open Source and Business

April 9, 2007 2 Comments

In dealing with Open Source in the business world, it’s amazing how often I run into statements like “we don’t use Open Source because we need a supported product” or “isn’t all Open Source no cost” or “yeah, but you can’t make money with Open Source”. I think some of this misinformation is simply the fact that Open Source is a new way of doing things. Old habits die hard. Another part of it, of course, is the FUD spread by some straining to maintain the status quo. I won’t touch on that part today though ;) The fact is (in order) commercial Open Source companies have to offer quality support – it’s where they provide value and therefore where they make their money. They’re not selling you boxed bits. All Open Source does not come at no cost. There are many examples of this, but the misconception remains a common one. As for the last one, there are a ton of companies making money with Open Source. In some cases, lots of money. The fact that being Open can be extremely good for business is actually what sparked this post. This is from a recent post by Jonathan Schwartz:

For years we were called proprietary – a moniker that did more damage to Sun than any market downturn. And frankly, we’ve spent years recovering. But at this point, my hope is we’ve completely turned that slur on its head, that we’ve come to define open – more open than any other vendor, more open than open itself. From silicon to systems, software to storage and services.

Where open translates to “open to opportunity.”

So how is the Sun stock doing since the transition started? In the last two years the stock has almost doubled. The general consensus about Sun has gone from one of near death to one of rejuvenated innovation. Open Source isn’t only good for the consumer, it’s good for the whole chain. It’ll just take some longer to figure that out than others.

–jeremy

Filed under Open Source, Sun

The LQ Radio Interview Series Returns

April 6, 2007 Leave a comment

I’m happy to announce that the LQ Radio Interview has finally returned. I’d like to thank Ilan and Orv of SCALE for being guests on the show. We covered a good amount of ground in 30 minutes. We used Gizmo to do the show and overall I’m happy with the audio quality. I have a few tweaks to make for future shows, but nothing major. More interviews will be on the way soon.

Listen In

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, LinuxQuestions.org, Open Source, podcast

Unbreakable Linux: The untold story

April 5, 2007 Leave a comment

Mike Olson, vice president of Embedded Technologies at Oracle, recently posted an interesting entry on his blog about Unbreakable Linux (via Matt). The article details why RHEL was chosen and how Oracle contributes to Linux. Keep in mind that Mike works for Oracle, but via the Sleepycat aquisition. He knows Open Source. Now, I never found it odd that Oracle chose RHEL. I’d have found it odd if they chose anything else in fact. In the Oracle Linux space, Red Hat dominates. I did wonder why the respun CentOS though. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. They’re directly competing with Red Hat with Red Hat’s own product. Sure the GPL allows that. I just don’t think it makes sense from a business perspective. Not when they could have partnered with Red Hat and gotten 95% the same thing. The 5% will make a real difference in the long run. As a major partner, they would have been providing real value to Red Hat. This in turn would encourage Red Hat to provide value to them. Early access to code, development road maps, etc. Enterprise customers would have gotten the proverbial one neck to choke (which the really do like) and Oracle would have been the single point of contact for Linux support on the RHEL product for their customers. The way they have it now, they will be in a perpetual state of playing catchup with new RHEL releases, with no help from Red Hat. In the end, what they wanted to do made a ton of sense… I just don’t think they went about it the best way. How it will play out long term remains to be seen.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Oracle, Red Hat

Open source expert speaks out on GPLv3

April 4, 2007 Leave a comment

If you’re following the GPLv3 draft process (previous coverage) here’s an extremely informative post by Mark Radcliffe. From the post:

Mark Radcliffe joins us this week to give his expert opinion on the latest draft of GPLv3. Mark is a friend and one of the industry’s premier IP attorneys, especially with open source licensing questions. He is outside counsel for the OSI and chairs Committee C in the GPLv3 drafting process.

In other words, he knows his stuff.

Dave and I invited Mark to contribute to Open Sources on GPLv3. Here’s his response:

The most recent draft of the GPLv3 was released on Wednesday, March 28. This guest blog will summarize the legal issues in the draft and some of the open issues. I have been involved in the process since the beginning because I am the chair of Committee C, the Users Committee, and I serve as outside general counsel on a pro bono basis for the Open Source Initiative. These comments are mine alone and do not represent the views of any of my clients.

The draft is part of a year long process of preparing the first new version of the GPL in fifteen years. The existing version of the General Public License (“GPLv2”) is, by far, the most widely used open source license: more than 70% of open source projects on SourceForge are licensed under GPLv2. GPLv2 is used by many well known programs such as the MySQL database and the Linux operating system.

He then goes on to detail, at a high level, the changes that have been made in this draft. He also explains what the rest of the draft process will look like.

–jeremy

Filed under GPL, GPLv3, Linux, Open Source

Oracle Linux adopters labelled 'idiots'

April 2, 2007 Leave a comment

Just ran across this odd story over at ZNNet AU. From the article:

One of the first converts to Oracle’s support for Linux has revealed the public backlash it has endured since their decision to drop Red Hat.

Melbourne company Opes Prime Stockbroking told ZDNet Australia that in the weeks following its announcement to adopt Oracle Linux, upset Linux enthusiasts phoned, e-mailed and wrote about the company online to complain at the decision.

“People called us out of the blue to tell us we were idiots,” said Opes executive director Anthony Blumberg.

He also fielded a call from an unhappy Red Hat Australia and New Zealand managing director Max McLaren.

I’m not familiar with Opes Prime Stockbroking and hadn’t seen any bashing going on, but I have trouble imaging why any Linux enthusiast would take the time to do something like that. If they did, it’s surely not indicative of the attitude of the larger Linux community. Looking at the history, the company seems like a prime target for the Oracle product anyway. First, they weren’t even a Red Hat customer. They had acquired the licenses through Dell, which means Dell provides the first level of support…not RHT. Second, the company has a very small number of servers, but is a heavy Oracle user (both database and application server). If this story is true, and isn’t the result of some misguided astroturfing, I hope it doesn’t end up reflecting poorly on the greater ecosystem. The level of professionalism I have seen recently in the Open Source realm is second to none. It’s a shame when a disingenuous few tarnish the hard earned reputation of most.

–jeremy

Filed under Linux, Open Source, Oracle, Red Hat

EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads

April 2, 2007 3 Comments

It was just a matter of time, but it finally happened. One of the major labels (EMI currently stands at number three) jumped ship and will be offering DRM free music. This isn’t a case of offering some tracks without DRM or a limited time deal – this is across its entire digital repertoire. Even better, while iTunes will be the first online music store to offer the DRM-less downloads, more are definitively on the way. Consumers will finally have real choices available to them. From the press release:

Apple’s iTunes Store (www.itunes.com) is the first online music store to receive EMI’s new premium downloads. Apple has announced that iTunes will make individual AAC format tracks available from EMI artists at twice the sound quality of existing downloads, with their DRM removed, at a price of $1.29/€1.29/£0.99. iTunes will continue to offer consumers the ability to pay $0.99/€0.99/£0.79 for standard sound quality tracks with DRM still applied. Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price. Consumers who have already purchased standard tracks or albums with DRM will be able to upgrade their digital music for $0.30/€0.30/£0.20 per track. All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.

EMI is introducing a new wholesale price for premium single track downloads, while maintaining the existing wholesale price for complete albums. EMI expects that consumers will be able to purchase higher quality DRM-free downloads from a variety of digital music stores within the coming weeks, with each retailer choosing whether to sell downloads in AAC, WMA, MP3 or other unprotected formats of their choice. Music fans will be able to purchase higher quality DRM-free digital music for personal use, and listen to it on a wide range of digital music players and music-enabled phones.

EMI’s move follows a series of experiments it conducted recently. Norah Jones’s “Thinking About You”, Relient K’s “Must’ve Done Something Right”, and Lily Allen’s “Littlest Things” were all made available for sale in the MP3 format in trials held at the end of last year.

Kudos to EMI for being the first one willing to do this. You have to wonder how long the other labels can hold out now. The rules of the game are changing here and April 2 may be remembered as the day DRM died (at least in the context of online music). Policies and practices that are anti-consumer always eventually fail. DRM wasn’t going to be any exception. While some people will always pirate music, the vast majority do not want to rip off artists. Make it difficult, or in some cases impossible, to legitimately consume your music though and they will route around you. It will be fascinating to see how this impacts online music sales and the labels in general. It will also be interesting to see how services like Amie Street and Magnatune (both quality services that you should check out) are impacted.

–jeremy

Filed under Apple, DRM

GPLv3, Microsoft/Novell language

April 2, 2007 2 Comments

A quick follow up to this post, Allison Randal has posted a good piece of some of the GPL modifications over at the O’Reilly Radar. From the post:

The core of the added language is:

You may not convey a covered work if you are a party to an arrangement with a third party that is in the business of distributing software, under which you make payment to the third party based on the extent of your activity of conveying the work, and under which the third party grants, to any of the parties who would receive the covered work from you, a patent license (a) in connection with copies of the covered work conveyed by you, and/or copies made from those, or (b) primarily for and in connection with specific products or compilations that contain the covered work, which license does not cover, prohibits the exercise of, or is conditioned on the non-exercise of any of the rights that are specifically granted to recipients of the covered work under this License.

Translating that into plain English, it says: If you distribute GPLd software and make a deal with another company who also distributes (some kind of) software, we will stop you from distributing the GPLd software if:
a) you pay the other company
b) the deal mentions the GPLd software
c) you get a patent license
d) the patent license mentions the GPLd software
e) the patent license has more limited terms than the GPL license on the software

She then goes through some of her objections with the terms. The part that I most agree with and have covered before is:

My fourth objection is embodied in the old adage “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The FSF had success in the past accomplishing one goal with a license, so now they’re trying to accomplish a broad range of goals using the same tool. But a license really isn’t the best tool to accomplish some of these goals. Particularly, it’s not a good tool for attempting to abolish software patents or prevent companies from making patent agreements.

A license is simply not the place for every battle. That being said, it’s very good to see things moving in the right direction. The FSF seems to be taking feedback very seriously and this draft has been received much better than previous ones. I’m hopeful that when the final draft hits, most items will have been ironed out.

–jeremy

Filed under FSF, GPL, GPLv3, Open Source

Torvalds 'pretty pleased' about new GPL 3 draft

March 29, 2007 1 Comment

The 3rd draft of the GPLv3 has been released, and it’s great to see that Linus is “pretty pleased” with it. Despite what same are saying, I think that Linus’ opinion on this matters quite a bit. He started one of the most successful GPL projects ever. Him rejecting the GPLv3 has the potential to create a huge fissure in the GPL landscape. From the article:

“I’m actually pretty pleased. Not because I think it’s perfect, but simply because I think it’s certainly a lot better than I really expected from the previous drafts,” he said. “Whether it’s actually a better license than the GPLv2, I’m still a bit skeptical, but at least it’s now ‘I’m skeptical’ rather than ‘Hell no!'”

In particular, one provision against digital rights management has been narrowed, and another that Torvalds feared could lead to multiple incompatible versions of the GPL has been removed or defanged.

“I’m much happier with many parts of it. I think much of it reads better, and some of the worst horrors have been removed entirely,” Torvalds said.

Torvalds was noncommittal about whether he might try to move the Linux kernel to GPL 3–a change that would require the permission not just of Torvalds but also of all other Linux kernel copyright holders. But he didn’t rule it out.

“The current draft makes me think it’s at least a possibility in theory, but whether it’s practical and worth it is a totally different thing,” he said. “Practically speaking, it would involve a lot of work to make sure everything relevant is GPLv3-compatible even if we decided that the GPL 3 is OK.”

I’ve not had a chance to look through the new draft thoroughly, but I’m not a lawyer anyway and my opinion on the subject hardly matters. The FSF had previously intimated that this new draft would prevent deals like the recent Novell Microsoft patent covenant. For it’s part, Novell seems to think this is not the case. From a Novell blog post:

Here’s Novell’s position on the new draft:

We will continue to distribute Linux. Nothing in this new draft of GPL3 inhibits Novell’s ability to include GPL3 technologies in SUSE Linux Enterprise, openSUSE, and other Novell open source offerings, now and in the future. This is good news for our customers.
We are firmly committed to continuing the partnership with Microsoft and, as we always have, fully complying with the terms of the licenses for the software that we ship, including software licensed under GPL3. If the final version of the GPL3 does potentially impact the agreement we have with Microsoft, we’ll address that with Microsoft.

A cursory glance would seem in indicate that the following clause is the addition made by the FSF:
Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor’s essential patent claims in its contribution, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contribution.

I don’t know enough about legalese to suss out whether that would actually invalidate the MSFT-NOVL agreement, however it is extremely encouraging to see that things are heading in the right direction.

–jeremy

Filed under GPL, GPLv3, Linux, Novell, Open Source

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