Yet Another Linux Blog

”
Sometimes forks in major projects can be a blessing. Sometimes though, they can kill a project. So, it’s uncertain what would happen if Linux forked. If you’re thinking…hey, nothing in open source will fork…read this and reconsider things. Even as recently as November 2004, there has been talk from the kernel developers about a fork in the kernel. The good part about a Linux kernel fork is that open source wouldn’t die.
”

And to rebut you continued fud about forking, read this.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20041121124609671

People posting fud without even contacting the maintainers/developers of the project hurts Open Source just as much. Please do your research. A simple email to Andrew Morton would have clarified this. I like the part from my link

“We did this for the 2.0 kernel series, the 2.2 series and the 2.4 series. One day we’ll do it for the 2.6 series.”

Again, please do more research.

I don’t really need to do more research. I went back in and underlined for you the MAIN POINT of each paragraph under the Forking section. Read those and you’ll understand that I not saying that Linux will fork from inside…but I am worried that it will fork BECAUSE OF THE INFLUENCE OF BUSINESSES.

Please remember that when you read a paragraph that the first sentence is usually the main idea and that you should take it as the main point of the paragraph with subsequent sentences adding support.

1. The GPL _specifically_ _forbids_ taking pre-existing GPL code and closing it, unlike the BSD license.

2. The GPL _specifically_ _requires_ providing the source of a GPL application _that_ _you_ _distribute_ whether you have contributed code to it or not.

3. Forking is not necessarily bad, but stealing someone else’s code (as in #1 above) or failing to fulfill the contractual obligations that _you_ _agreed_ _to_ by distributing GPL code, as in #2 are.

That about covers it.

While I see paranoia as a survival trait, I see _unreasonable_ paranoia as a handicap. Forgive me, but you seem to be concerned about companies doing things that Eben Moglen is retained by the FSF (or is it GNU.org ?) to deal with. He seems to be a _very_ talented guy and I am certain he will handle it if necessary.

Relax.

Drink something without caffiene.

Relax some more.

Repeat as necessary…

I honestly don’t want to sound overly critical here, but it genuinely sounds like you really don’t understand the GPL. I’ll leave aside talk of other licenses for now.

The GPL creates a framework for voluntary cooperation, among individuals and/or companies, based on very clear obligations being voluntarily incurred in return for very precise benefits.

In order to redistribute modified versions of the code already licensed under the GPL, the modified version must be similiarly released.

That statement basically summarizes all of the benfits and costs of the arrangement. Someone or some company is a member in good standing of the community if they are honoring the terms of the license.

Copyright law and the GPL are quite clear. All a company or individual has to do is obey the law (and, by extension, the GPL). Anything else given to the community is strictly voluntary — a gift, not an entitlement.

If you want to posit an *additional* set of obligations that should somehow also be incurred by corporations (and presumably individuals?) under other terms, then you have a lot more in terms of ground to cover, details to specify and rationale to argue for.

That said, of course GPL code will fork at least occasionally. The GPL specifically *enables* forking, by granting a conditional right to modify the software. That’s freedom. (shrug)

If you want to come up with a license that allows source code to be viewed but not modified, you can do that — but it wouldn’t be open source.

With regard to the LSB, it would be interesting if you chose to argue that the *process* for setting the standards of the LSB is to open to manipulation favoring major players. If true, it would be a legitimate concern.

I don’t know if that would hold water or not, but it would be preferable to what you’ve done on that point — which semantically boils down to “all standards are bad”. Speaking only in terms of voluntary standards, I’d have to disagree.

Just because the Windows API is a standard and the LSB is also a standard doesn’t mean the two are both Bad Things(tm).

The Windows API has been and will continue to be defined by Microsoft to suit their purposes. The problem isn’t that it’s a standard, but rather, how it is set.

I don’t know enough of the ins and outs of how the LSB came about to say that it is definitely a more open and fair process — but considering that we’re talking about the Linux community, that would be my natural expectation, anyway.

So, some large company with deep pockets is going to count on being able to win a cour case against “Tom” and invest money in developing on top of a stolen code base, where they will sell something and provide concrete numbers for thier benefits from “Tom”‘s code. And this is a viable business plan? Nothing anywhere gives anyone the right to take someone elses creative work and claim it as thier own, and if it isn’t thier’s, then what is thier agreement with the author? Proprietary code is in much greater danger of being open-sourced once its proven to be a derivitive work, then open source is of suddenly being the bread and butter of a large company. Microsoft (they aren’t the bad guys by the way, it isn’t thier fault that people are purchasing pretty boxes instead of quality code, they just provide them) would be in worlds of hurt if GPL code was found in thier products, as the penalty would be pretty clearly be them opening up the source of the product. So if you are Microsoft, a leader among amoral software companies, you don’t spend your time perusing GPL code to see if thier is something you can steal, you spend your time writing code, and seeing how you manipulate the legal systems of the world into protecting your business. This sort of thing has already happened though, and was dealt with promtly and easily. A large manufacturer of network hardware apparently commissioned a net appliance from a country where labor is cheap, and they recieved these appliances, stickered with thier name and distributed them. A few whily individuals noted that the binary bore the signature of a linux kernel, and requested in writing the full source, from the hardware manufacturer, who had no idea that thier product contained GPL’ed code. They contacted the company they commissioned to create the thing, inquired as to the nature of the source code, the company in question played dumb for a while, realized they were caught and promtly released the source, along with thier changes. I would think it would be a less than lucrative business plan to steal GPL’ed code and hope noone noticed. Forking won’t create any killer products that will cause the world, to abandon its open source root, paticularly since the closed fork, by definition would lose the value of its open source counterpart. Big business shouldn’t be pushed out of the community simply on the basis that they are large, and they are significant part of the community. As for open sources success, how many more people have to use open source than proprietary code before its successful. Every windows machine in the world has open source software on it, every internet attatched device in the world has open source code in it. Your definition of success seems to be centered the amount in which it is a household name, I am not sure why this is significant, but lets suppose it is. I would guess that per marketting dollar put behind it, linux and other open source products have about 10=100 times more consumer awareness penetration than thier proprietary counterparts. Lets see, how many more people know about what Internet Explorer is and don’t know what Netscape.

Somehow, companies have always found ways around license issues, patents, and anti-trust laws. You call it paranoia and I call it being informed. One can never have enough perspective on an issue…unless you wanted to limit yourself to only one point of view.

*yawn*

I’m struggling to find any original thinking in this editorial. I think I’ve seen all of those arguments a million times going back to about 1995.

Move along.. nothing to see here.

The only thing the auther has a clue about is that software patents is a problem. But he really misses the point.

Software patens is a problem to the whole software industry, not just FOSS. In fact I would guess that propriatory software would be in even more trouble. Just consideer this. If you were to sue sombody over patents would you rader sue sombody with very little money, or would you go for sombody that actually was likely to cough up some money before goint to chapter 11?

You could expect some companies making lawsuits for anticompetitive reasons, but that could happen to closed source as well.

ABI and LSB 2.0

ABIs and standards for building Linux systems are by no means a lock in. In general, ABIs are more a blessing than a curse. In reality its more a question of which ABIs you are going to use, and not if you are going to use them.

It is of course important to discuss whether only implementing RPM as package format in the LSB 2.0 is particular sane idea. But thats an entirely different question.

ABIs only become lock-ins when they are used for anticompetitive reasons, ie:
a) they are not documented properly to 3rd parties
b) are changed at will to break compatibility

I believe this is what Microsoft has done in the past. I don?t see this happening with the LSB 2.0.

The only thing I really agree with you is that software patents suck.

You have? Wow…you are the most informed individual on the face of the planet to have heard all of this by 1995! You’re my hero! Will you tell me _everything?_

Why don’t you pull your head out?

In reply to:

4)

In case you didn’t notice, the GPL is enforcable in European courts, and no software manufacturer will want to fight a few developers as money over there doesn’t buy the courts (yet), and European courts tend to be much more consumer-friendly than the US judicial system when it comes to obvious things like the GPL.

And since no company wants to forfeit the EU market, they’re going to comply.

Linksys had to feel the pain. Else, try to get at Russians – over there, suing for patents, copyright and DMCA-style stuff is pretty futile as the number of P2P websites clearly shows.

3)

A fork can be useful for some specialized appliances, but I doubt it would be of any use for general-purpose kernels. And since the Linux kernel is GPLed, I doubt that anybody would produce a closed-source fork – the reasons for this being outlined above.

What I’m fearing much more is that BSDish operating systems get abused for things like routers.

your premise for open-source’s failure is that it isn’t “dominant”. that’s a very MSish attitude, no?

for someone not trying to do the FUD thing you certainly are quite good at it. if my first exposure to open-source/Linux had been your postings I’d likely ran like hell was after me back to the MS empire and begged for BG’s forgiveness.

as for the possibility of any or all of the things you’ve mentioned happening, well, anything is possible. should the open-source community spend the time it appears you have in fear of their coming to pass it would no longer be able to produce anything usable and so become irrevelant anyway. you either fear the monster under the bed, or you look under the bed to see if its real.

Over 500K employees? The GM website says GM has 325,000; how many companies have more (approximately 50% more, actually) employees than GM?

I _think_ you _may_ have overstated the size of your employer by just a bit…

I disagree with your logic. Who, precisely, is “taking” from Linux when company X pays $$$ for RHEL instead of paying nothing for the Linux source? How would Linux be better off? Do you really think Company X would then use those $$$ to fund internal Linux development? Isn’t it better if Company X pays $$$ for RHEL and RH pays a few developers? I mean, even if FOSS developers only saw a single dollar, wouldn’t that be a dollar that they wouldn’t otherwise see? The correct answer AFAIK is “Yes, it is better that companies like RH charge for Linux and reinvest some amount.” In fact, I think you’ll admit that RH reinvests a lot more than $1.

In your previous post, you called companies that take without returning “parasites” but that’s incorrect. The term is FREE RIDERS and this problem has been studied by philosophers, psychologists, economists, and sociologists for at least a couple hundred years… go look up David Hume and Adam Smith or other literature on the problem before you go posting wild speculation.

IIRC, I’ve actually seen a paper taht specifically analyzes the issue of free riding in FOSS and found that because of the low transaction cost of copying the software, products like Linux can stand very high levels of free riding. All you need is a core of people contribute…. which is what you had before there was money in Linux… and you have it moreso now.

I think you ignore a counter argument… do you *really* think that the Kernel developers would tolerate a flood of people who showed up sullen and without the needed skills to participate? Of course not. I think the vast majority of the kernel developers participate because they love doing it and it’s therefore it’s own reward.

Further, I think most FOSS developers are gratified when their work is used. I don’t think they see it as free riding at all.

So, I don’t get your point about companies “taking” from Linux without giving back. I’m actually skeptical that you have a point.

So, going back to your first point… what is your point? I think your are concerned about companies like RH offering support and then folding; leaving Linux customers in a lurch? Geez… so the solution is to never offer paid support? That is *SO* ass-backwards and shows that you have _no_ _clue_ why/how companies choose IT solutions.

Anyway, it is patently clear that the *FAR* greater risk to FOSS is that the RH/Novell/IBM/Sun/SGI/etc gray train were to derail (or even slow down) and the Linux developers had to get jobs coding proprietary software. I can *assure* *you* that if RH folds, the people left in a lurch will blame RH, not Linux. And I’m sure they will find switching to Novell or Debian (or any of the “white box” RHEL clones… this is OPEN SOURCE dude) faster, cheaper, and easier than downgrading to Windows.

One more thing. In your first point 6 (you have two), you make some mistakes. First, the average user in the US now uses broadband. So downloading a huge program is not so silly. Second, Walmart.com is one of the few places where you can buy a pre-installed Linux computer… so not sure why you brought them up but they’re a major conduit to spreading Linux desktops to the masses.

Finally, FOSS is catching on. My mother–who, I swear, did not know how to operate the *BACKSPACE* *KEY* –asked me to install Firefox (she called it “The Mozilla” ) on her new computer because she’d heard that it blocks pop-ups. So there’s the real recipe for FOSS adoption: (1) make a better mousetrap, (2) make sure people can easily get it, and (3) market the trap.

FWIW, I think desktop Linux isn’t spreading like wildfire because it fails all three of these but especially the first… Windows works (fitfully) for most people most of the time. But people will adopt Linux if companies like Red Hat craft a distro that fills their needs (locked down, remotely upgradable, stable, etc.) and it gets marketted.

So, I think you have your facts backwards… it’s companies like RH that will *allow* Linux to be adopted.

Think DoD

Here you go… My claim is based on numbers:

http://news.com.com/Study%3A+Broadband+leaps+past+dial-up/2100-1034_3-5314922.html?tag=cd.top

http://news.com.com/Year+in+review+Dawning+of+the+broadband+age/2009-1034_3-5494277.html?tag=cd.top

And if those numbers are wrong, the pace makes it inevitable pretty soon:

http://news.com.com/City+of+Brotherly+Love+may+embrace+Wi-Fi/2100-1039_3-5342286.html?tag=nl

Exactly what people in businesses actually DO…they REMOVE the GPL code out of their software so they are not forced to GPL the rest of it.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/12/28/business/code.html

Have you ever seen “Support Your Local Sheriff”? The town ran out of money to build the jail _before_ they had _any_ of the bars. The “prisoners” were told to consider themselves locked-in. The fact that they did is a main source of the humor in the movie.

That is _exactly_ the amount of lockin you get from _open_ API and ABI sets; you can come and go as you please because _there is nothing to stop you_. If you _are_ locked into an _open_ implementation, it’s because _you see the bars_ regardless of the fact _they don’t exist_.

MS gets lockin from their API sets precisely because the source is closed; you can call any given function (presuming they bothered to document it at all) but you cannot see how it transforms its input(s) into its output(s) or any of the intermediate product(s). Depending on this function working its magic locks you in because you cannot replace the function.

I don’t know how to say it more clearly: API/ABI sets provide lockin precisely to the extent they are closed. Therefor, completely open API/ABI sets (the LSB sets are completely open GPL-ware) _have no lockin potential_.

Yay! We won one!

Now if we could only win somewhere that would set a precedent. You have to consider that the source of this win was Germany. Afterall, the German court system gave us (used collectively here) the German Multimedia Law that says ISP’s are liable for what their users have on their computers (that’s laughable).