So Dell and Canonical forced them into it – but they did it. I’m honestly shocked.

Linux has hit a critical mass. It may not be taking over the desktop world, but it has at least reached “Mac” support status.

http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_linux_broadcom_wi_fi_drivers_arrive

The LF should publish a PDF version… I’ll send them a suggestion. One other suggestion would be about how a developer should work with their internal legal team to get permission for submitting code. Perhaps we’ll see that in version 2.0.

Oh, and of course it’s free (as in beer) – until O’Reilly buys the rights ;-)

http://ldn.linuxfoundation.org/book/how-participate-linux-community

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) today announced that it has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Extreme Networks, Inc. on behalf of its clients, two principal developers of BusyBox, alleging violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

“We attempted to negotiate with Extreme Networks, but they ultimately ignored us,” said Aaron Williamson, SFLC Counsel. “Like too many other companies we have contacted, they treated GPL compliance as an afterthought. That is not acceptable to us or our clients.”

“Red Hat’s settlement of outstanding patent litigation on terms that provide additional protection to other members of the community upstream and downstream from Red Hat is a positive contribution to the resources for community patent defense. We would hope to see more settlements of this kind–in which parties secure more than their own particular legal advantage in relation to the third-party patent risk of the whole FOSS community–when commercial redistributors of FOSS choose to settle patent litigation. SFLC welcomes Red Hat’s efforts on the community’s behalf.”

I need to spend more time thinking about all the implications of this, but one thing is clear… Steve Ballmer was not required to build this “bridge” ;-)

Ask a good IP lawyer you know whether Jonathan *could* do this if he suddenly wanted to… ask your IP savvy lawyer to read the Solaris 10 license, then the Contributor Agreement, patents that could cover Solaris and explain to you what IP a vendor could still control or use against you if you were to start making OpenSPARC chips, ship Solaris around the world, etc… You may also look at what Solaris products you actually might use on a server… and the IP/licenses associated there. Have you seen anyone benchmarking Solaris 10 and publishing results online? Oh, that’s right, it’s not allowed (See the post from emantion near the end). Was that a surprise to you considering all the “open” messaging you may be hearing? Did you confuse OpenSolaris with Solaris 10?

Then consider that while the CDDL isn’t too bad, it was intentionally developed to be incompatible with the GPL and the only open source OS to really matter, the Linux kernel. (Sorry BSD guys… I know… you’re hurt, but … sorry) Once you have an answer from your astute lawyer, I’d ask, would having all that power and control in one vendor concern you? Could they take it away?

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/a_new_strategy

I pity the fool.

Now ask your lawyer to read the GPL license that comes with RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu, Asianux, OEL or SLES (ignoring MSFT/Novell for the moment). Simpler? Want to post a benchmark comparing any Linux distro’s performance? Go right ahead. Can any 1 vendor stop you? No…

Continuing this line of thought, now look at where all the other industry vendors participating in mass open source collaboration are heavily investing right now, today, and tomorrow. You can read about this over at the Linux Foundation (yes, the second plug for this fine work). Or you can look at Apache or even one that surprises me daily, Eclipse.

http://www.linux-foundation.org/publications/linuxkerneldevelopment.php

And some actually are still surprised that Red Hat keeps growing amid pointed attacks from Sun, Microsoft, and Oracle? “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

Winning was just the next step ;-)  Congratulations Red Hat, Novell, Debian, and Ubuntu.

Nonprofit Group Says Microsoft Promise Provides No Assurance for Developers

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), provider of pro-bono legal services to protect and advance free and open source software, today published a paper that considers the legal implications of Microsoft’s Open Specification Promise (OSP) and explains why it should not be relied upon by developers concerned about patent risk.

Now this Microsoft response is just ridiculous:

“Because the General Public License (GPL) is not universally interpreted the same way by everyone, we can’t give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL or other OSS licenses, but based on feedback from the open source community we believe that a broad audience of developers can implement the specification(s).”

It didn’t work for me on a very quick attempt – my Micropolis window froze up but was easy to quite and exit gracefully. There must be a bug or it must not be Compiz-ready…

10 Rules of the Road for Licensing and Packaging Linux-based Virtual Appliances

December 13, 2007 @ 2:00 pm Eastern Time

Distributing software as virtual appliances with Just Enough Operating System – specifically Linux – is a rapidly expanding market opportunity. But for many traditional proprietary software vendors, open source licensing is an unfamiliar road.

If you are an ISV planning, building, or already shipping virtual appliances, don’t miss this webinar. Former SVP and Deputy General Counsel at Red Hat Mark H. Webbink will map out ten essential check points for packaging Linux with an application into a virtual appliance, addressing cumbersome roadblocks such as copyright protection for collective works v. derivative works.

Webinar seats for this event are limited so register early to reserve yours. All registrants will receive a copy of Mark’s white paper, “Licensing and Packaging for Virtual Appliances” after the event.

We are accepting questions in advance only and Mark will address them in the second half of the webinar. Please submit your questions on the registration form or send them to info@rpath.com .

Event Date: December 13, 2007

Time: 2:00 pm Eastern Time

Enroll Here: https://rpath.webex.com/rpath/onstage/g.php?t=a&d=686123039

James Vasile, Software Freedom Law Center
- on -
GPL3, The FOSS Legal Primer,
and The Interaction of Licenses & Communities
Recorded live at Google New York, November 14, 2007, 6:30 PM

http://nylug.org/meetings/index.shtml?20071100

Audio/Podcast:
————–
The audio files run 1:27, contain the entire presentation, and are
available in Ogg Vorbis and MP3. These can be downloaded or streamed
here: http://www.archive.org/details/NYLUG_2007_11_14_General_Meeting

Video (640×480):
—————-
The new “experimental” video runs 01:27. It is available via BitTorrent.

2.0 GB MPEG file here:
http://nylug.org/raw/NYLUG-2007-11-14-GM-RAW.MPG.torrent

182 MB AVI file here:
http://nylug.org/raw/NYLUG-2007-11-14-GM-RAW.avi.torrent

Please join us on Wednesday evening, for a presentation by James Vasile of the Free Software Law Center on several legal topics of interest to users of Free and Open Source Software. While version three of the GPL is now old news, there are still some points about it worth discussing, and many still have questions about what makes it different from previous versions of the widely-used GNU General Public License.

James will also be talking to us about the interaction between licenses and communities.

Further Information:

• Free Software Law Center
• GNU General Public License v. 3 (GNU GPL)
• Dragging developers towards the core: How the Free/Libre/Open Source Software community enhances developers’ contribution

About James Vasile:

James Vasile holds a Juris Doctor (JD) from Columbia Law School, where he was a member of the law review and a Stone Scholar. He also has a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Fordham University. He spent several years in the litigation department of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, where he worked on a range of cases and dealt with a variety of new media issues. Vasile has also contributed code and documentation to numerous FOSS software projects. He is admitted to practice in the State of New York.

You Must RSVP HERE: http://rsvp.nylug.org/

Directions to Google’s NYC office are here: http://www.nylug.org/home/index.shtml

Find out more here: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/summit/2007/

SFLC notice: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2007/sep/20/busybox/

“Free software licenses such as the GPL exist to protect the freedom of computer users. If we don’t ensure that these licenses are respected, then they will not be able to achieve their goal,” said Eben Moglen, Founding Director of SFLC. “Our goal is simply to ensure that Monsoon Multimedia complies with the terms of the GPL.”

http://www.podtech.net/home/3844/a-hour-with-ibms-top-intellectual-property-lawyer

http://www.cups.org/articles.php?L179+I0+T+M10+P1+Q

1) Apple Operating System Development License Exception:

a.) Software that is developed by any person or entity for an Apple Operating System (“Apple OS-Developed Software”), including but not limited to Apple and third party printer drivers, filters, and backends for an Apple Operating System, that is linked to the CUPS imaging library or based on any sample filters or backends provided with CUPS shall not be considered to be a derivative work or collective work based on the CUPS program and is exempt from the mandatory source code release clauses of the GNU GPL. …

…

UPDATE at 12:30PM on July 30, 2007: trs81 on #redmonk pointed out this exception has been around for some time and was only updated to say Apple was granting the exception. See the older version in Debian:

http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/c/cupsys/cupsys_1.2.7-4/cupsys-common.copyright

I will offer a couple comments on what I observed. First, I think the press had higher expectations of the “rolling support/relicensing” announcements would be. Let’s be realistic here: the text changed up until the final version (you can see the red-line version with changes from the “Last Call Draft” to the Final here). Obviously organizations, communities, projects, and vendors participating in the community will now only begin to evaluate licensing under GPLv3 (it’s hard to decide to license based on a changing draft license). You can see what GNU projects are beginning to relicense under GPLv3 here (June 29-30) and here (July).

I personally would not predict a major “ecosystem relicensing effort” to get all GPL licensed software under GPLv3. This process has surely brought to light a common understanding that GPLv2 is certainly good enough, and as Linus has pointed out… what’s the rush? Certainly there are some provisions like the patent “fix”, but whether that really “fixes everything” is doubtful anyway. So a few GNU projects have already gone to GPLv3 – the only point I’ll make here is you don’t need all of them to go to GPLv3 and you certainly don’t need the kernel at GPLv3 to have an impact. Just one package under GPLv3 is sufficient to have an effect and that’s already done. For patent issues… perhaps OIN is doing enough to keep predators at bay…

Does this minimize the importance of GPLv3? Not at all. If you ask me, the greatest output of all this debate, hype, FUD, clarification, drafting, and discussion is something amazing – a license built and agreed upon by the community. When was the last time you saw that happen? This is a true testament to the power of community innovation and the interest and support for GNU/Linux.

So if this is so great and the community is largely in agreement, why don’t we see everyone adopting it? I suspect the reality in many open source projects is simple… they don’t have an immediate need for a new license. Let’s say you have a laptop that you bought two months ago and someone is willing to trade you that laptop for one bought today that has a slightly better configuration. You know it will take you another 12 hours to migrate everything over and get up and running on the new one and while there’s potentially a slight benefit, there’s nothing on this new model that you really need. Perhaps you decline on updating to the latest model… that’s where I see GPLv3 – broad adoption will happen if those communities still on GPLv2 (or another license) have a need for any license change. The driver won’t be a new license, but a need for any change in their current license (and many won’t find one) I suspect Linus has been searching for what if any need he has for GPLv3 and there’s really not much that will “change the world” by changing licenses.

Anyway, head over to Luis’ place for his analysis, and in the meantime, remember:

I will preface that this meme is about “open source firms” which I assume means companies/profit seekers leveraging open source software as a model to grow – not those who take on the humble task of building free software in a non-commercial intent model (i.e. Apache, Eclipse). Having replied to this meme, I get to name the next round of victims. For that I will now tag Canonical’s Mark Shuttleworth, kernel hacker Gerrit Huizenga who participates uniquely with other Linux firms in the community, and finally sogrady’s partner in crime over at Redmonk, Coté. So without further adieu, here’s my quick/dirty 3×3.

3 “Do”s:

1) Do Bring Crisp Customer Value to the Table: Define a value proposition beyond simply relying on being “open source” – there has to be some reason your value proposition is better (i.e. Firms in your industry constantly struggle to integrate X and Y while customizing for individual business units. Our open, modular architecture can be adapted to meet your individual business unit CRM requirements and integrate with X without expensive, lengthy customizations of the entire app) Hitting on a pain point of “closed” alternatives works well too – ask a PBX user how much they love their supplier(s)… turn the pain points (licensing, payment models, etc) into your value prop

2) Do Make Friends, Not Enemies: I once had a _smart*_ once tell me in an opening introductory sentence at an O’Reilly event his job was to use open source to wipe out millions of dollars of IBM’s business until IBM realized they’d have to buy him. That was his first sentence to me ever! – not “Hi, I’m XYZ from ABC, I’d like to find ways to partner with IBM”. The IT business is driven by partnerships, friendships, loyalties, acquaintances, and networking. If you are into open source to make a profit, partner like mad – if you position yourself as the enemy, expect to be killed or worse, ignored and slowly put out to pasture. The person who approached me in that manner is now struggling with the latter issue… I suspect his initial investors won’t hang around long as he still tries to make himself relevant.

3) Do Make the Right Friends – Partner with the Right Partners: The open source firms with a strong management team “get” partnering. They partner with other firms that can enable business and community growth. Just because someone like IBM invests millions in open source communities, Linux, and the community does not mean every open source firm should bet the farm on partnering with IBM. Yes, partnering with IBM has advantages, but IBM can also suck up your precious resources simply navigating the huge array of virtual teams. IBM may also have a differing strategy (and every strategy out of IBM is not necessarily the one that wins in market – you can be different). As an open source firm, your goal is to find the right partners who are naturally aligned for partnering with you. Don’t accept partnerships that have no investment on one side – they’re doomed. Both sides must be aligned and invested. How will your partnership not only create more business for you, but also generate new revenue or reach a new customer base for your partners. I’ve had this discussion with the head a particular open source firm on a few occasions – partnering is by definition mutual – how do we both benefit from partnering? (otherwise, I can’t justify investment and maybe I’m not the right partner for you) Another IBM partner with an open source product just closed another round of investment for ~$25M – they know how to partner in a mutually beneficial model. There will be a lot of news coming in this space…

3 “Do not”s:

1) Do Not Shy Away from Being a Commercial Business – too often companies pitch how “open” they are. While that’s great, how do you make money? It’s as if some open source firms are afraid to discuss how they make money off of free software (free as in speech). This is usually a good way for vendors to weed out the bad firms – if the firm is shy about discussing this, they probably have a weak value prop, and there’s probably more of a “hidden hook” to make customers pay than offer something customers want to pay for. IBM has for a long time been investing substantially in Linux, open standards/source based software, and open source communities – I can’t recall an executive who did not clearly, up-front, and simultaneously articulate how IBM generates revenue from any of those ventures. If you set the tone up front, no one will be surprised or upset later. And if you have a strong value prop – see point 1) – customers will expect your valuable product/service comes at a reasonable price. And one last point is “free as in beer” only gets you one round – downloads do not magically turn into profit later. I don’t care if you have 8M downloads – while that’s great for showing loose interest in your technology, how many are paying you? How many have built a dependency in their applications on your technology? How are you going to generate the revenue needed to fund the next version of your technology?

2) [If you are trying to be the standard as in platform], Do Not Try to Control/Dominate/Dictate an “open” Community Project. I’m not talking about MySQL here – they’re an application/database component. Rather, think about platforms like operating systems, dynamic server languages, portable runtimes, etc. that customers use as platforms to build on. There are many of these succeeding today (RHT, NOVL, PHP, Apache, Eclipse to name just a few). There are others that may have an open source license, but the firm tries to dominate with restrictions and provisions in contributor agreements, including hidden hooks in license terms, or by bundling in non-free (as in speech) components. These firms typically then claim to be leaders and their platform is growing in adoption … yet for some reason… no one partners with them – see point 2) – and they carry the entire development expense with no community-scaling benefits. They invest the R&D and in the end, their “community platform” is just another vendor product that rings well with the vendors existing customers. Consider Eclipse – while it may have started with IBM dominating the “participant list”, it takes a serious approach to vendor-neutrality and open participation for BEA, Oracle, Sybase, Zend, Actuate, Compuware, SAP, CA, and Borland to all join IBM on the Strategic vendors list. The same applies to Linux – look at the Linux Foundation membership list.

3) Do Not Ignore Intellectual Property; Do Not Let Intellectual Property Stifle Your Innovation – First, you cannot ignore the effects and implications of intellectual property decisions. First, there’s the license – not all software must be GPL, but there are serious, practical issues if you decide to create the “XYZ Corp Open Source License v1.0″. License appropriately for the type of developer and user community you’re trying to foster. Second, patents – take a political stance, but don’t get caught staring at the clouds waiting for Congress. File for patents if you can, what you do with them after is up to you, but the Patent Commons, OIN, or some other entity is a great place to house them. Also, don’t be stupid and violate an obviously valid patent. If you’re starting an open source project in a technology area that has established players – hire an attorney to guide you through the minefield. It can be done. Third, figure out the trademark situation. Badgeware is one issue, but not creating a trademarked identity that your “open community” can use in viral marketing and “I’m proud to be an XYZ-user” situations is sheer nonsense. You need to establish legal trademarks, then set clear guidelines for trademark usage up front, make it open, and don’t use your trademark to make people pay you – IMO it’s a poor business practice and creates unnecessary frustration later on. And finally, don’t let IP hold you up. Everyone knows this field is wrought with nonsense and arcane approaches to IP. If you can create value, just hire a reasonable IP attorney to walk you through the field. Take some basic steps to be safe, but don’t spin wheels and tie up valuable resources trying to analyze (or let an attorney make you analyze) every conceivable, possible, extreme angle. IP generally comprises of Patents, Copyrights, Trade Secrets, and Trademarks – use them wisely.

If I had a 4×4 meme, I’d also cover open standards and the importance to lead in driving these open standards as part of your model (see what happened with Spring for instance).

Some great quotes:

We have declined to discuss any agreement with Microsoft under the threat of unspecified patent infringements.

Allegations of “infringement of unspecified patents” carry no weight whatsoever. We don’t think they have any legal merit, and they are no incentive for us to work with Microsoft on any of the wonderful things we could do together. A promise by Microsoft not to sue for infringement of unspecified patents has no value at all and is not worth paying for. It does not protect users from the real risk of a patent suit from a pure-IP-holder (Microsoft itself is regularly found to violate such patents and regularly settles such suits). People who pay protection money for that promise are likely living in a false sense of security.

I welcome Microsoft’s stated commitment to interoperability between Linux and the Windows world – and believe Ubuntu will benefit fully from any investment made in that regard by Microsoft and its new partners, as that code will no doubt be free software and will no doubt be included in Ubuntu.

The Linux Foundation is hosting a Collaboration Summit out at Google’s posh campus. I didn’t make it out as I’m buried in other things, but luckily we can read all about the events on blogs (and about the Google cafeteria).

Andrew Updegrove coverage: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20070613083618132

Danese Cooper coverage: http://danesecooper.blogs.com/divablog/2007/06/linux_foundatio.html

I especially liked Danese’ quote of Dan Frye:

I predict that Dan Frye is going to get quoted a LOT (and the FSF should make a tee-shirt ) about his great comment when asked for the top two things the community can do for Linux…“When the GPLv3 is final…just CHILL !!!”

Don Marti’s “unique” coverage: http://www.linuxworld.com/community/?q=node/621

I already have a prototype for Danese:

Some choice predictions from Linus on Sun, OpenSolaris, and GPLv3 rumors. It’s easy to imagine that I agree with Linus here – Sun tends to talk open source, but walk closed/controlled source. (hence, low developer participation – remember Sun’s participation buzzword??)  I’ve said it before, so nothing new here from me – I’ll let Linus do the talking ;-)

Some choice quotes:

– first off: they may be talking a lot more than they are or ever will
be doing. How many announcements about Sun and Linux have you seen over
the years? And how much of that has actually happened?

- They may like open source, but Linux _has_ hurt them in the
marketplace. A lot.
…
- Ergo: they’ll not be releasing ZFS and the other things that people are
drooling about in a way that lets Linux use them on an equal footing. I
can pretty much guarantee that. They don’t like competition on that
level. They’d *much* rather take our drivers and _not_ give anythign
back, or give back the stuff that doesn’t matter (like core Solaris:
who are you kidding – Linux code is _better_).
- They may release the uninteresting parts under some fine license. See
the OpenSolaris stuff – instead of being blinded by the code they _did_
release under an open source license, ask yourself what they did *not*
end up releasing. Ask yourself why the open source parts are not ready
to bootstrap a competitive system, or why they are released under
licenses that Sun can make sure they control.
…
So to Sun, a GPLv3-only release would actually let them look good, and
still keep Linux from taking their interesting parts, and would allow them
to take at least parts of Linux without giving anything back (ahh, the
joys of license fragmentation).