Blackmoor Vituperative

The first discussion draft of the GNU General Public License was finally released on Monday, and addresses the issues of patents and patent-related retaliation, as well as its compatibility with other licenses.

Richard Stallman, the founder of the Free Software Foundation and author of the original license, was the first to take the floor here at the First International Conference on GPLv3 at MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), to express his vision for the new license. […]

The biggest changes to the license were in the area of license compatibility, removing the obstacles that prevented it from being combined with code from other free software packages. […]

The other biggest changes to the license were regarding the issue of DRM (Digital Rights Management), which was seen as denying users the freedom to control the software they had.

“DRM is a malicious feature and can never be tolerated, as DRM is fundamentally based on activities that cannot be done with free software. That is its goal and it is in direct opposition to ours. But, with the new GPL, we can now prevent our software from being perverted or corrupted,” he said.

A patent license grant has now also been included, as well as a narrow kind of patent retaliation clause. “If person A makes a modified version of a GPL-covered program and then gets a patent on that and says if anyone else makes such a modified version, they will be sued, he then loses the right to make any modifications, meaning he can’t commercially use his software,” Stallman said.

While the license does not require that the modified version be released, it does ensure that others would not be prevented from writing similar modifications under the license, he said.

(from eWeek, GPL 3.0 Draft Tackles Patents, Compatibility)

These sound like good changes to me. If you want more detail (and you should), you can read the full text of the GPL 3.0. You may also want to check out the Free Software Foundation’s rationale for the changes in GPL 3.0.

On Tuesday, Novell announced the creation of the AppArmor project, a new GPL open-source project dedicated to advancing Linux application security.

Novell Inc.’s AppArmor is an intrusion-prevention system that protects Linux and its applications from the effects of attacks, viruses and malicious applications.

AppArmor is based on technology that Novell acquired from Immunix, a leading provider of Linux host-based application security solutions for Linux, when it purchased the company in May 2005.

AppArmor works by “application containment.” In this approach, the interactions between applications and users are monitored for possible security violations. This “has emerged as a favored way to protect applications from compromise and to protect applications from one another,” observed Al Gillen, research director of system software at IDC when Novell acquired Immunix.

How these interactions are monitored is set by policies. The commercial version comes with predefined security policies for Web server applications such as the Apache Web server, the Postfix and Sendmail email servers, the MySQL DBMS (database management system), and the Samba file and print server.

Novell has donated the core components of its AppArmor framework to provide a foundation for the project. The GPLed code will be available on OpenSUSE.org,

(from LinuxWatch, Novell open sources major Linux security program)

The U.S. Patent Office has rejected two Microsoft patents over the FAT file format, but the software maker said Wednesday that it’s not ready to give up its battle to protect its widely used method for storing data.

The patent office delivered its ruling late last month but made it public this week. With one of the patents, the decision is what’s considered a final rejection, while with another it’s considered nonfinal. In both cases, Microsoft has the ability to pursue its claims further.

The rejections come after a re-examination of the patents was sought by the Public Patent Foundation, which argued that they were invalid because there was “prior art,” that is, evidence that others had done similar work before Microsoft’s patent application. A U.S. Patent Office examiner issued a preliminary rejection of one Microsoft patent in September 2004.

(from ZDNet, Microsoft’s Linux-related patents rejected)

Don’t celebrate yet: money is the engine of our legal sytem, and Microsoft has a lot of it. It’s only a matter of time until they buy what they need to shut Linux down within the USA. To be clear, I do not begrudge Microsoft their millions: I believe that they earned most of it. What vexes me is that our legal system and our legislators are open to the highest bidder.

It will get worse before it gets better.

Last Friday, the state of Massachusetts made it official: effective 2007-01-01, it will use only nonproprietary document formats in state-affiliated offices. Let’s hope that other government agencies follow Massachusetts’ common-sense lead.

[State CIO Peter Quinn] told DesktopLinux.com earlier this month that he challenged Microsoft and other companies who sell software that uses proprietary document formats to consider enabling open-format options as soon as possible. Quinn said that “government is creating history at a rapidly increasing rate, and all documents we save must be accessible to everybody, without having to use ‘closed’ software to open them now and in the future.” …

“Microsoft has remade the desktop world,” Quinn said. “But if you’ve watched history, there’s a slag heap of proprietary companies who have fallen by the wayside because they were stuck in their ways. Just look at the minicomputer business, for example. The world is about open standards and open source. I can’t understand why anybody would want to continue making closed-format documents anymore.”

(from eWeek, Massachusetts Verdict: MS Office Formats Out)

Step up to the plate, Virginia.

A recruiter at Microsoft sent Eric Raymond (co-founder of the Open Source Initiative, former member of the board of directors of VA Linux Systems, and contributor to The Cathedral And The Bazaar) an email expressing interest in hiring him. Apparently the recruiter did not know who Raymond was.

Microsoft on Friday issued a mea culpa for not doing its due diligence before sending Linux and open-source luminary Eric Raymond an e-mail expressing interest in having him work for the Redmond software giant. …

Raymond, who posted the entire e-mail from Microsoft recruiter Mike Walters on his blog, informed Walters in no uncertain terms that he was not in the least bit interested in working for them.

Raymond also posted the entire text of his response to Walters on his Weblog which, as usual, pulled no punches.

“On the day I go to work for Microsoft, faint oinking sounds will be heard from far overhead, the moon will not merely turn blue but develop polkadots, and hell will freeze over so solid the brimstone will go superconductive.”

(from eWeek, Microsoft Makes a Mea Culpa for Hiring Situation)

Tell us how you really feel, Eric. Don’t keep your feelings bottled up like this: it isn’t good for you.

News from the Free Software Foundation is that the next version of the GPL may include penalties against those who patent software or use DRM in their products.

Specifically, the new GNU GPL (General Public License) may contain a patent retaliation clause. …

Other open-source licenses already do, noted Larry Rosen, founding partner of a partner in the law firm Rosenlaw & Einschlag and author of “Open-Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law.”

“I’m pleased that FSF is going to add patent defense to its new GPL 3. Many other open-source licenses have such provisions already,” said Rosen.

(from eWeek, New GPL Will Contain Patent Protection

I’m not sure adding penalties will actually accompish anything, though. If anything, I think they might chill the widespread adoption of open source software. Which is a shame, because, in principle, I think they’re a great idea: as Greve said, software patents and DRM are a menace to society.

All OpenOffice.org source code and binaries (executable files) up to and including OpenOffice.org 2 Beta 2 are licensed under both the LGPL and SISSL. Effective 2 September 2005, all code in the 2.0 codeline will be licensed exclusively under the LGPL. All future versions of OpenOffice.org, beyond OpenOffice.org 2 Beta 2, will thus be released under the LGPL only. The change in licensing implicitly affects all languages and platforms in which OpenOffice.org is distributed.

(from OpenOffice.org, License Simplification FAQ)

This goes along with the OSI initiative to trim the ridiculous number of OSI-approved open source licenses down from 50 or so to around 3, which I wrote about back in February. At this rate, it’ll be the year 2026 before they reach their goal. Still, kudos to Sun for taking that scary step of altering their license.

I updated the site statistics. More hackers whose IPs have been logged and blocked, and more weird search terms which led people here. It seems that the Fantanas are more popular than Windows. Who’d have guessed?

John Carroll over at ZDNet has an article about what it would take for Linux and open source software can compete with the Microsoft “ecosystem”. His first two points are pretty reasonable. In fact, I think they’re common wisdom by now:

1. More consistency: Ecosystems are essentially standards that extend across software markets. They simplify development by lowering costs, shortening development timeframes and leveraging knowledge across markets.

For Linux to build a proper ecosystem, more thought needs to be applied to what technology will be present on every instance of Linux. That’s going to be hard, as one of the things that appeals to so many users of Linux is its technology agnosticism. … For instance, choose whether every system must include KDE or Gnome (but not both). Decide that every instance of Linux must ship with Corba, and which Corba ORB it should use. Every version of Linux should ship with Java or .NET….

2. Greater spread: I noted in my original post that ecosystems are only as valuable as their spread. That means that Linux cannot confine itself to markets where it is currently popular. Linux needs to spread, and that means they need to get more popular in desktops, handhelds, cell phones, music players, media technology, etc.

No stunning news there.

From here, however, Carroll veers into the Twilight Zone:

3. Detente with the world of proprietary software: Now for the controversial stuff. The single biggest force holding back the growth of open source software are the Free Software vigilantes who view proprietary software as tantamount to slavery. That puts open source in the productive category of nations that prevent the female half of the population from working. Open source programmers do great things, but proprietary software can benefit from both the efforts of open source programmers AND the efforts of those who create for financial gain.

That’s a waste. Philosophically, open source should move closer to Eric Raymond (who understands that there is a role for proprietary software) and away from Richard Stallman (who is on record as saying programmer’s should make less money).

Yes, Stallman is a flake. You’ll get no argument from me there. And no, he obviously shouldn’t be setting policy for the open source movement. He had a great idea, and he’s due credit for that, but just because the gods reach down and touch a band and they have one of the best songs ever (e.g., How Soon Is Now by The Smiths) doesn’t mean that you should listen to that band for the rest of your life.

But Carroll is missing the central element of what makes open source software “open source” — the license requires it. You can’t combine GPL and patented software into one product. The GPL is sometimes compared to a virus. It’s not: patents are the virus, and the GPL is the cure. Compromising with the world of proprietary, patented software would destroy the world of open source software.

4. Encourage a paying market atop your products: … Of course, there is nothing which officially stops companies from selling Linux software. There is a barrier, however, that derives from a culture that expects low-cost, if not free, open source products.

This is partly derived from the difficulties of deriving revenue from software as such when the secret sauce is published for all the world to see. Lots of people gloss over that problem by noting that there are lots of other ways to make money from software besides sales. Even so, it’s worth noting that the web of companies that build software for Windows (and who form a large part of the appeal of Microsoft’s platforms) are attracted by the profits to be generated by a pool of buyers with a demonstrated willingness to pay.

A similar buying culture needs to be built for the open source world. That will require, of course, jettisoning the “free software” philosophy which drove the movement in its early days.

So in order for open source software to compete with the Microsoft hegemony, it needs to stop being open source. Thank you for that pearl of wisdom, Mr. Quisling.

Here is a man who physically embodies the concept of “not getting it”.

The Zotob attacks could have been prevented by proper Windows patching, or they could have easily been prevented for less by using Linux in the first place.

(from eWeek, Zotob Madness and the Real Cost of Windows vs. Linux)

I don’t run Windows on any server, and haven’t for several years (nor has any competent system administrator, in my opinion). In fact, there’s only one reason I even use Windows on the desktop, anymore: Adobe Photoshop. But with Adobe’s pernicious “treat your customers like criminals” features in recent versions of Photoshop, that may not continue much longer.