“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”
–Mrs. Warren’s Profession, 1893
The last time we boasted a project whose choice was the GPLv3, it was SimCity. Other large projects include Funambol (AGPLv3) and SugarCRM (GPLv3). Here is another ground-breaking transition that is certainly going to have ripple effects. It might also instill confidence in the minds of some of who are still cautious and hesitant.
Trolltech CEO Haavard Nord announced today at the KDE developer conference that the company’s cross-platform open source Qt application development toolkit will be released under the GPL 3. This move, which comes shortly after the release of KDE 4.0 (watch for our review on Sunday night), will allow the open source desktop environment to adopt the new version of the GPL.
Also on the same subject, Free Software Magazine has an excellent new interview with Richard Stallman. Among the things that he says there with regards to Tivoization:
Companies making consumer electronics products want to impose DRM on us; they want to do this in programs that they receive as free software, then pass them on to us in such a way that we do not have the freedom to change them. So they invite us to allow our software to be tivoized, and offer us, as an inducement, that our software will be “more popular” if we cave in.
The only way to keep our freedom is to have the steadfastness to reject those tempting offers. We have to move to a license like GPL version 3 that will stop these tempters in their tracks.
With Qt’s new licence, courtesy of Trolltech whose business is on the incline, the future of GPLv3 is all about business, not against it. █
An appeals court has reinstated a patent lawsuit filed against Google over a toolbar feature called AutoLink that provides links to online maps or books on Amazon.com, according to a Bloomberg News report.
A court in China has dismissed a trademark lawsuit filed against Google, according to a report on ChinaCourt.org that was translated into English and posted on Pacific Epoch.
Nokia’s pre-emptive strike against InterDigital’s 3G-covering patent portfolio has reached a ruling by the English High Court, reducing an initial pile of 31 patents down to four: one of which has been ruled essential for 3G technology, and three which could, but might not be infringed by a 3G handset.
In an application with the U.S. Patent Office filed on Dec. 20, the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer and gadget company described a wireless system that would allow customers to place an order at a store using a wireless device such as a media player, a wireless personal digital assistant or a cellphone.
[...]
Most cover relatively mundane technologies. Others, however, have stirred interest. Patent application #20070288886, unhelpfully titled “Run-Time Code Injection To Perform Checks,” describes a system that would restrict the use of some software to “specific hardware platforms.”
This sounds similar to Tivoization, but quite the opposite (‘modification’ of hardware is not permitted, as opposed to code).
Until very recently, the scope of patentable subject matter under the Patent Act encompassed four categories – process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. These were broadly construed to encompass just about anything manmade. However, with the In re Nuijten and In re Comiskey opinions, explained and compared in this article, the Federal Circuit substantially narrowed what was previously thought to be within the purview of 35 U.S. C. § 101. The Federal Circuit held that a business method, if not combined with a machine, is not patentable, and that a signal, on its own, is similarly not patentable. These decisions create three new conditions for patentability not previously recognized by case law: a “technological arts” requirement, a “non-transience requirement, and a “tangibility” requirement.
This was pointed out many times before, e.g. here. █
The first part is being translated. There is not much to see here unless you are particularly involved or interested in the subject of software patents in Europe (of great relevance to FFII).
TiVo Inc. on Thursday proclaimed itself winner of the latest round in its battle against EchoStar Communications Corp. after federal regulators validated the digital video recorder maker’s patent that is central to the case.
Microsoft is succumbing to patent trolls today, as they’re being ordered to pay over $140 million for, get this, asking for two passwords. The original award was ordered in April last year by a federal jury in Marshall, Texas, widely known as the friendliest court for patent trolls. There Microsoft and Autodesk were saddled with $158 million (plus attorney fees) for asking users to “input two passwords during the process of activating newly installed software with the aim of deterring piracy.”
On Tuesday, November 27th, there were 126 companies sued nationwide for patent infringement. 113 of them were sued in the Eastern District of Texas. That’s more companies sued in one day in East Texas than have been sued in all of 2007 so far in Detroit. Or Dallas. Or Eastern Virginia. Or Minnesota. Or Boston. Or Philadelphia.
In a video that was uploaded to YouTube a few days ago, Richard Stallman talks about Free software, the GPLv3, and mixing ‘intellectual property’ with ‘software patents’ — something that Microsoft deliberately does in order to confuse.
In the coming months, we are likely to see some interesting developments, some of which litigious.
SugarCRM and the GPLv3
In other news, the GNU GPLv3 appears to be growing up very fast and it might even reach Wall Street thanks to SugarCRM being its ‘carrier’. According to this new report, the company’s CEO is eying an IPO in the long term.
Roberts anticipates that the company, which now has 125 employees, can grow to $100 million in yearly revenue in the next couple of years.
Remember, however, that SugarCRM is a dual-license piece of software with history of abusing the term “open source”. This earned it notoriety in the Free software circles. Here is the company’s latest milestone and marketing pitch:
Another difference is that SCE 5.0 will be licensed under version 3 of the GNU general public license (GPLv3) instead of the vendor’s own Sugar Public License, a derivation of the Mozilla Public License, as had previously been the case.
Full of free software pride, SugarCRM CEO John Roberts has revitalized his attack against the Open Source Initiative (OSI) characterizing the organization as weak and confused.
After being the open source community’s whipping boy, SugarCRM now enjoys a position of power. Last month, the software maker agreed to place a fresh version of its flagship product under the General Public License v3 (GPLv3) crafted by the Free Software Foundation. This established SugarCRM as the most prominent backer of GPLv3 to date.
SugarCRM is to adopt Version 3 of the GNU general public license (GPLv3) for the next release of its open source CRM software after coming under pressure from its user community to move away from its own Sugar Public License.
Tivoization and the GPLv3
A curious new paper highlights what could indeed be a loophole in the GPLv3. It permits Tivoization through the use of hypervisors (yes, yet another unaccounted-for disruptive technology, just like SaaS).
This guest whitepaper explains how a hypervisor can be used to leverage GPL software while isolating it from proprietary code, in order to ensure compliance with the requirements of the GPL.
Bear in mind that DRM in Tivoized devices is not just loathed, but it is also ineffective. Consider this fairly recent development:
Megazone over at TiVo Lovers is reporting that someone’s cracTiVoked the DRM on TiVoToGo, letting you export recorded programs from a TiVo for viewing on any device.
There remains a great ambition to end such anti-consumer methodologies, so GPLv4, which Richard Stallman has already mentioned, springs to mind (probably prematurely).
In the ongoing battle between Linux kernel developers and the Free Software Foundation (FSF) over the future of the GNU Public License (GPL), somehow DVR-maker Tivo has become either the whipping boy or the poster child, depending on whose side you are on. FSF founder Richard Stallman even coined a term for what he sees as misuse of the GPL: “tivoization”.
Getting people’s attention is even more important than trying to develop a free BIOS or a free flash player. The industry offers technology and people accept/reject it, this is how things work and this is why having people on our side is the way to go (instead of begging the industry for mercy). There would be no need to develop a free alternative to the Google Earth client in a Free Software-aware society, for example.
On Saturday we will post the usual batch of positive news and some items will demonstrate the nearness of Novell and XenSource. Thus, the impact of this acquisition on Novell will be interesting.
With Xen in the hands (and agenda) of Citrix, KVM might have more room to breathe in the Linux universe. Bernard Golden (shown in the videos at the bottom) has more to say in a quick roundup from LinuxWorld.
Crosby was also concerned about the proliferation of Linux virtualization technologies; meaning KVM, although there are still further Linux virtualization initiatives. His plaintive cry is that this fragmentation of effort might allow Microsoft to win the virtualization race; the race, that is, to be the replacement technology for VMware. While his concern is understandable, I’m not sure there’s any real way to solve it, particularly as a couple of the alternative technologies — including KVM– emanate from commercial companies that, presumably, have deep enough pockets to keep the technologies going for the foreseeable future.
Yesterday, one knowledgeable blogger criticised XenSource for taking a wrong approach in implementation. He argued that KVM got it right. And amid VMWare’s IPO, accusations are circulating as well. VMWare is said to have used Linux and renamed it.
Update: this acquisition appears to be a reason to worry. There is some early analysis available now ending with “Linux, incidentally, got barely a mention.“
Discussions about Tivoization have left plenty of room for disinformation. Some still believe that GPLv3 forbids DRM. While DRM is a very nasty, dangerous, and anti-consumer use of encryption, it is not forbidden by the new licence. Ed Burnette wrote a lengthy item to dispel this myth.
In our continuing series on the latest version of the world’s most popular (and least understood) free/open source license, today we look at a controversial subject: Digital Rights Management (DRM). My colleague David Berlind has another name for DRM: Content, Restriction, Annulment, and Protection (CRAP).
Elsewhere on the Web, someone decided to share malicious ideas that could ‘poison’ the licence.
Since MS seems to really dislike GPL v3, they could solve a lot of their problems with a simple move: Release all the code necessary to get interoperability under Linux working. Under GPL v2 only.
This is similar to an idea which we already said would never work. The partnerships with Linux companies (other than Novell) were — among many things — used to pressure the FSF and discourage use of GPLv3.
Novell’s virtualisation agreement with Microsoft has been controversial for a variety of reasons. Among those reasons is Novell’s willingness to make GNU/Linux secondary to Windows in the datacentre. Consider this old interview.
In an interview with Computerworld, Ron Hovsepian gives some background on the genesis and workings of the Microsoft-Novell deal. Hovsepian states that the deal began in search of virtualization, and that initially Microsoft’s position was that Linux could be virtualized within Windows, but not Windows within Linux.
Later on, Novell indicated that its special ‘deal’ with Microsoft brought it what others were already able to achieve without a deal. Then arose the suspicion that Microsoft might use virtualisation as a bargaining card (or extortion) to have more companies sign patent deals. Recall what Shane said at the time. Here is where a news article fits in. On the face of it, Novell and Microsoft will shortly introduce a shim.
In particular, there is some work going on to support paravirtualized drivers for Windows guest machines running on SUSE. Having this in place would allow Windows guests to run on SUSE Linux without needing to go through an emulation layer, thereby improving performance. I’m going to be particularly interested in hearing how these drivers will be licensed, as my suspicion is that they will end up needing to be open sourced, which will make them available to everyone, not just Novell customers.
This is Novell’s chance to show that it doesn’t work in isolation. We previously criticised licensing that accompanies this work. Is Novell a mixed source company or is it truly stuck in its proprietary roots? We shall soon find out.
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