BSD->GPL Relicense Follow Up

Spacemonkey — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:06:00 +0000

In a previous article I mentioned a spat between some BSD developers and some GPL developers, with the SFLC getting pulled in to find a resolution.

It does appear that a resolution has been found, and it looks like the right thing was done.

Logic Prevailed.

In an excellent follow-up article at Linux-Watch by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, the SFLC asked for a quiet period to finish their research and analysis of the situation.

This of course allowed tempers to cool off (I’ve seen Eben do that before, because it was me and it worked) and provided minimal distraction for the SFLC to investigate and collect the data needed for their findings:

There the matter has sat until now. According to the SFLC, “All the copyright holders of the Linux ath5k-driver code, derived from ar5k, have been contacted and have agreed to license their changes under the ISC license, thus allowing improvements to be re-incorporated into OpenBSD. One of the three historical branches of the code reviewed by SFLC, however, included portions that are only licensed under the GPL, and SFLC has determined that it would be very difficult to re-incorporate that code into OpenBSD.”

You can read the analysys of the wireless driver’s development history at the SFLC site directly. Talk about transparency!

Ath5k-driver (discussed in Section 2) currently carried by Linville represents a clear and documented line of descent from ar5k to an ath5k driver for Linux. In addition, all new copyright holders in ath5k-driver code have been contacted and have agreed to license their changes to the ar5k-derived files under the ISC license.9 SFLC has provided a patch to Linville that provides correct attributions for all copyright holders in question. Therefore, SFLC recommends that development under the ISC license continue from what is currently in Linville’s commit c1928199c27de433d1e81b78e3178be4f0e978d2 in his ath5k branch of the wireless-legacy git repository.

I was unsure if the SFLC would take this course, and it is a pleasant read for me, as the SFLC demonstrates an understanding and cooperative approach to non-GPL projects.

Perhaps the most useful of this all is their article about originality requirements which discusses what they believe are reasonable and logical guidelines for determining the copyright status of software.

As well, they have published a guideline for developers who wish to maintain permissive-licensed files in a GPL project.

These last two documents are of great importance to the open source developer community, and I recommend every single one of you take the time to read these. They have thoughtfully been provided in PDF and PS formats for reading offline or printing.

Excellent, excellent work done by the SFLC.

SFLC on the Offensive

Spacemonkey — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:58:00 +0000

Monsoon Media has been caught in clear violation of the restrictions of the GPL license with one of their products, which appears to be running Linux and other GPL software, and Monsoon not making the source available to customers at their request.

The Software Freedom Law Center(SFLC) was called in to get these knuckleheads to play fair ball, and at that point Monsoon threw in the towel and sent out press releases that they would come into compliance.

So far, so good. So what?

Well, the SFLC isn’t happy with that. They are going to take them to court anyway.

As reported by C|Net:

“Simply coming into compliance now is not sufficient to settle the matter, because that would mean anyone can violate the license until caught, because the only punishment would be to come into compliance,” Ravicher said, though he declined to say what other actions the SFLC is seeking.

And the SFLC doesn’t want to be a pushover. “If you start getting a reputation for being a pansy, then people are going to conclude they don’t have to do anything,” he said.

On a personal note: There is absolutely no possibility of pansies in the SFLC offices. When you get instructed by an attorney how to reset your DHCP client from the command line, you better know your GNU, punk! Shoulders up! Get that stomach in, boy!

Let me get it clear that I agree 100% that the GPL must be taken for real by everyone, even those that don’t agree with some of the restrictions of the GPL. Whether you like the GPL or not, whether you agree with the tenets of the GPL or not, it is still a license, and must be complied with and respected. Without someone like the SFLC willing to bring litigation on those unwilling to comply with the license, the GPL is lost.

And in that case, where does that leave us with all the other open/free/libre licenses? Oops.

On the flipside, the SFLC is now on the offensive. To me this is curious as the whole purpose (I thought, at least) was to protect open source projects. That would be defense.

Sometimes Offense is the Best Defense

This is the approach the SFLC is taking, and I sure hope it works out for them. Because it would be a pretty ugly loss if it didn’t, and they already made their point IMHO.

If you violate the GPL and we are made aware, we’ll come to you and make sure you comply. That is what the message should be. However this is taking it one step further, which of course raises the bar.

Glass Houses

The approach Monsoon took is a common one: Continue until someone actually bothers to haul you into court, because 999 times out of 1,000 nobody will.

Some of the projects that the SFLC represents are practicing that same philosophy, by willingly violating copyright in some instances. It is the assumption that nobody wants to fight the SFLC in court over a copyright violation (me included, as I simply don’t have the resources).

So bullying the bully is okay, until you are outed as another bully. Then bully on you. It may only be a matter of time before one of the bullied parties decides to help one of the parties on the receiving end of the bullying, as long as the SFLC is the eventual target.

This puts the SFLC in the crosshairs of some folks. Maybe that is the intent behind the SFLC, as they plan on the legal enforcement of the GPL and so expect to have some folks that aren’t exactly fans.

I sincerely wish them luck, and watch from the sidelines on this one.

Open Source Hypocrisy: Tag sflc

BSD->GPL Relicense Follow Up

Logic Prevailed.

SFLC on the Offensive

Sometimes Offense is the Best Defense

Glass Houses