Open Source Archive

An IT Manager's Journal article tries to clear up misunderstandings about the controversial GPLv3. It discusses several common points of controversy and misunderstanding, and notes that discussion of these points is ongoing.

"When free software supporters participate in the French presidential election on April 22 for the first round of voting, they will have information that may be unique in the world: position statements from all major parties on issues about free software, copyright, patents, and digital rights. Even more surprisingly - at least from a North American perspective - a majority of the candidates have heard of these issues and developed positions on them."

David Wheeler's paper, 'Why OSS/FS? Look at the Numbers!', is a collection of quantitative studies on free software, with the goal to "show that you should consider using OSS/FS when acquiring software". It has a set of different studies grouped into the categories market share, reliability, performance, scalability, security, and total cost of ownership. A brand-new 2007 edition is now available.

"In the beginning... open source was pure and unadulterated. Over time, the idea of community-build software that is free and unfettered by sticky licensing terms and fees caught on with IT buyers, and the disruption of the old order began. Now, open source (Linux, Eclipse, Java, etc.) is mainstream, with many companies giving away valuable software for free and looking to gain profits from their largess."

This was Stallman's first talk since the release of draft 3. He explains how the 'tivoisation' clause was narrowed to encourage wider adoption, how the Novell-MS deal is tackled in two directions, and why the Additional Requirements section was dismantled, among other things. Possibly an interesting sidenote is an interview he gave straight after the talk.

"There are both popular and unpopular ways of circumventing the Free Software Foundation's General Public License. A very unpopular method, we've come to find out, is via promises of patent protection for users of specific software. However, if you're looking to leverage Free Software without completely fulfilling the requirements of the license, a better method would be to exploit the software as a service loophole, which the latest draft of the GPL3 just legalized."

The FSF has released the third draft of the revised third version of the GNU General Public License. Some of the changes in the new draft, such as the increased clarification and legal language, or the housekeeping changes that reflect new aspects of the license are likely to be accepted. However, the license also includes a new approach to the controversial issue of lock-down technologies as well as more explicit language about patents, including language designed to prevent a re-occurrence of agreements such as the one that Novell entered into with Microsoft - all of which is apt to kindle heated debate as the revision process enters its final stages after fifteen months of intensive work.

The third discussion draft of GPL version 3 is scheduled for release at 7 a.m. PDT on Wednesday, Brett Smith, a licensing compliance engineer for the Free Software Foundation said in a mailing list posting Monday. The current GPL 2 governs the rights and restrictions of many open-source and free-software projects, including high-profile ones such as the Linux kernel, Java and MySQL database. A 'last-call' draft is due 60 days after the third discussion draft, and the final GPL 3 will arrive 30 days after that, Smith said.

Almost two years ago, the FSF started work on the first update of the GNU GPL in over a decade. A last-minute hitch, though, is keeping the license from appearing. According to Peter Brown, the FSF's executive director, "We continue to work on the details of the GPLv3 as it relates to the situation presented by the Novell and Microsoft deal. We are researching issues related to potential unintended consequences of the language we plan to adopt. As soon as we are satisfied with the results of our research we plan to bring forward the next draft."

The FLOSS Movement is not yet recognized enough to develop peacefully. There are many obstacles in the way of its expansion: either internal (e.g. lack of standards) or external (e.g. stubborn hardware manufacturers). Those problems could be gradually overcome in a relatively short period of time but a question arises: What will happen if the paranoia wins?

"Is open source still a grassroots social movement made up of idealistic underdogs trying to revolutionize an amoral industry? Or has it become a cloak used by IT vendors large and small to disguise ruthless and self-serving behavior? Some observers argue it's the latter. Despite occasional protests from old-timers - the heated backlash against the Microsoft-Novell détente, for example - open source has become so co-opted by mainstream IT, so transformed by 'accidental open sourcers' simply looking for a better business model, that it's lost its cherished moral edge."

This week FSF Europe announced the release of its Fiduciary License Agreement, a form of copyright assignment in which a free software project can place its collective copyright under the control of a single organization or trustee. The agreement is designed to reduce the problems in managing copyrights in large projects, and to reconcile differences in copyright worldwide. However, exactly how important, useful, or necessary the FLA is depends upon whom you talk to in the free software community. To some extent, FSFE even seems to be operating contrary to the advice of the original Free Software Foundation in the US.

Tucson Amateur Packet Radio is sponsoring a plan to encourage and popularize the idea of open source - for hardware components. The organization released a draft of an open source license for computer hardware this month, and issued a public call for comments on the draft. The new license is already drawing criticism from prominent members of the open source community.

A ham radio club in Tucson, Arizona, is inviting public comment on a draft license governing open hardware designs. The Tucson Amateur Packet Radio club's Open Hardware License version 0.9 is available online for comment and discussion through March 7. TAPR says its OHL was designed to help hardware designers engage in collaborative development, "just as open source programmers do today."