[GNUz] "Sun slams predatory GPL" pot/kettle?

[Richard Tindall]

Yes, I read a few related items, the night of that post.

I've made notes directly into my research paper (towards the end):
http://www.infohelp.co.nz/dslicenstxt.html

But the gist is, there seem to be stormclouds gathering around open 
source, on the issue of licensing.

The cuddling up to corporates as sponsors has left OSS exposed to an 
MS-patent assault, where IBM will stand by its corporate brother 
foremost (as it owns more patents than MS). Bruce Perens just issued 
warning at LinuxWorld. Novell and lesser players have seen the writing 
on the wall, and are pressuring OSI to refine the licensing criteria to 
a simple three (L/GPL + commercial): OSI urged to reform open source 
licensing <http://www.vnunet.com/news/1161301>.

Meanwhile, the strategic shortfall has seen medium-scale business 
interest in OSS peak and start declining. They have checked Linux out, 
and concluded they cannot justify the training investment. Corporates 
have economies of scale, explaining their readier adoption. The DHB 
exploration of OSS lauded this week may go the way of NZPost's, along 
these lines. Until training is properly solved at user group level, or 
professionally, there are no brakes on the slide.  Linux fails in small 
business market <http://www.vnunet.com/news/1162291>

The impetus to commoditise OSS code is in-built, and targets the GnuPL 
central obstacle, as seen from Sun. In-built impetus because, in the 
main, as I see it, the OSS ethic itself is not well-founded in trying to 
out-market MS (by losing its BSD-GNU root). That is, OS is a product of 
the 1990s, with two precise faults: 1) OSS's creation background was the 
explosion of MSwindows and the Internet (a mass and widely-held 
indoctrination merging the two with loyalty), and a programmer shortage 
that laid expectations that OSS programmers would do as well financially 
& socially as MS-based programmers (OSS still struggles to prove this); 
2) that period pre-dated the dotcom crash etc, and OSS has yet to adjust 
its expectations and planning accordingly.  MS will (try to) stomp 
on OSS, because that is how govt/monopolisation and the laws of share 
market profitability work.

Luckily, wise heads abound, like John Swainson: "God created GPL for a 
reason". :-) We have a clear rallying point, and allies.

The "risk of mixing open source and proprietary code is a result of the 
rise of open source within the enterprise". We have to balance that 
risk, wih a healthy, strengthening community. This is a practical, 
organisational, construction task. It starts with yuppy-OSS seeing it 
isn't all of the Gnu/Linux story (as vice versa; these constitute but 
the flagship product), by actively acknowledging the importance of FSF 
1980s work, somehow. The lesson will come from the market, inevitably, 
but there are quicker, kinder, and more forward looking means, involving 
peer advice. Open Source licensing minefield looms 
<http://www.vnunet.com/news/1161314>






Wesley Parish wrote:

>Firstly, sorry I won't be able to make it tonight.
>
We missed you Wes. Hopefully see you next time.

>
>Secondly - the flip side to that is that Intel has decided to quite its own 
>F/LOSS license, since it's just an extravagance on the market and hardly 
>anybody bothered with it anyway.
>

Yes, battle lines are being drawn. Wintel is no surprise. Strategy is 
their forte, and the general public love the convenience they supply, 
ahead of everything (time is the the true value / commodity under 
increasing pressure).

>I think the backlash against license proliferation started with Sun's CDDL.
>

Market-driven outcomes can only be seen as positive. Read the waves, and 
you can ride them (out).

>
>Wesley Parish
>  
>
Cheers, hth, and please pardon my directness,

Rik

-- 
Richard Tindall
InfoHelp Services