GPL getting tougher on patent deals

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Exactly. The GPL is a model: The GPL is effectively copyrighted material, and the copyright is here to protect our rights, as well as the rights of the initial authors.

The principle is that it allows a vertuous circle where everyone wins. If you are not convinced, look at the Open Font Licence (OFL) made by SIL, as a variant adressing specific needs for the safe open-sourcing of font designs.

(However the OFL was made to be also explicitly compatible with OSS principles, filling the gaps that some lawyers were trying to do against some featues in the current GPL that were not enough clear).

The SIL.org website explains very well with a graphic why the Free/Libre and Open Source (FL/OSS) ommunity is a win-win strategy for everyone, and why it allows everyone to progress and why it gives space for innovation, creation, evolution.

I do think that the most important principle in FL/OSS licencing scheme is NON-DISCRIMINATION between users, except if forbidden by law, in domains that are restrited to qualified personnels wiht official diplomas, and official regulation of their activities, like medecine and lethal arms production or technologies based on the fission or fusion of atomes or high-energy elementary particles, because these domains represent severe security risks for physical people safety.

Note that FL/OSS licenced products may be used legally by users working within the restricted domains described above. As long as they don't redistribute it to anyone, or don't include them as part of restricted products, they don't have to provide the sources they have modified to buuld those products that they are alone to be able to use legally under restrictions required by law (and control agencies).

But if there are severeal qualified users working in those restricted domains, and they want to exchange products together legally, they must be able to exvchange their sources and collaborate. The FL/OSS principles will still apply in this case between them. And if they want to recreate a product that inlude the modified FL/OSS licenced feature, in a way that can be distributed legally without restriction (after removing their restricted features) this remains possible, and the FL/OSS principles are immediately fully applicable: the initial copyright is enforcable.

I won't enter in the debate between the advoates of Free/Libre and those of "Open Source Initiative". For me, only the "Free as Libre" definition is correct, and those using the term "free" as if it just meant "no charge" or those that use the term "open source" without the rights that go with them are just abusing the movement, by forgetting the principles of non-discrimination of users.

Yes the Novell-Microsoft agreement is a real danger, because it is based on discrimination, and Novell will attempt to market its products as "free" and "open-source" despite it is no longer non-descriminating as it threats other users from legal suites. If Novell products are including features covered by patents owned by Microsoft, then Novell products are proprietary, not "Free as Libre", even if they are distributed at no charge.

What Novell is actually distributing is similar to shareware, i.e. it abuses the GPL licence by agreeing (with Microsoft) on discrimination. Novell should have never entered such agreement with Microsoft. If Novell fears legal suites, then the only way it can comply with the GPL is to stop distributing the product immediately, and inform its users that what was licenced was not free. The community then has to find solutions to eliminate all what is covered by threatening patents. In other words, we must ban the Novell distribution and forgive Novell of using the GPL licence.

Those companies that have bought GPL-ed products from Novell should really start immediately a legal wuite against Novell for its false information when distributing products without a legal licence, but I see no reason why Microsoft should ransom those users that have been abused by Novell.

Novell is fully liable of the damages, and what Microsoft can do is to help the GPL community to remove the affected features possibly by forcing Novell to pay for the necessary developments.; Posted by: PhilippeV Posted on: 03/29/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use