OpenOffice.Org Now Under LGPLv3 107
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Sun has moved OpenOffice.org to the LGPLv3 license. In his blog Sun's Simon Phipps cites worry over software patents as being one of their main reasons for this move: 'Upgrading to the LGPLv3 brings important new protections to the OpenOffice.org community, most notably through the new language concerning software patents. You may know that I am personally an opponent of software patents, and that Sun has already taken steps in this area with a patent non-assert covenant for ODF. But the most important protection for developers comes from creating mutual patent grants between developers. LGPLv3 does this.'"
Software (Score:5, Insightful)
Software is the only thing you can have both a patent AND a copyright on.
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And the idea that copyright can protect the little metal clip from copying is one of the worst perversions of the patent [wikipedia.org] system I've heard.
Moreover, you can't copyright the patent claims, diagrams and descriptions. The basic point of the patent registration is that the contents of the patent are available to the public
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The patent on the idea will eventually expire. The exact specific code used in their specific implementation will remain copyrighted longer.
Imagine someone long ago patented the idea of the book when they wrote the first one and copyrighted it. The patent on the idea of books would long ago have expired, but each individual book can still be copyrighted for a certain period of time.
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Re:Software (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Software (Score:5, Insightful)
About Us (Score:2)
The connection between patent law and unique fictional storylines necessary to conceive of Storyline Patents may never have been made if Andrew Knight did not occasionally dabble in fiction... Recognizing that fierce competition for publication and financial reward focused on the quality of storytelling, as opposed to the quality of the underlying storyline itself, and further recognizing that even the world's most skilled storytellers (of which he is c
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Sounds like a plot for a movie...
Bah, all the plots are already prior art (Score:2)
Almost any story can be glibly described in a few sentences. What makes a story good, or even great is in the telling, that's why a talented author would copyright his particular expression.
The only possible use of a "plot patent" is strictly to troll and whine "wah, he stole my idea, but made it better than I could!"
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This is not true, Mechanical components have patents on the idea, and copyrights on the drawings of the machine that implement the idea. Software is the same way, patents on the idea, but copyrights on the source code and executables.
That does not make software patents a good idea however.
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It's a subtle point, but you can't have a patent on either the source or executables, only the ideas/mechanism they express.
Software *is* a fundamentally different construct than anything that came before it, and it's going to break a lot of these "software is the only thing that..." comparisons. It doesn't make any sense to be to allow someone to patent physical mechanisms but not software that has just as much
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True, but it's been around for over half a century, and that's discounting Ada Lovelace [wikipedia.org], the world's first programmer, who died in 1852 (the machine she wrote programs for, Babbage's Analitical Engine, wasn't actually constructed until the late 20th century).
Why is physicality so valued as to deserve patents when software is not?
Why should software deserve patents when music does not?
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Design patents and copyright (Score:2)
not true [wikipedia.org]. It's been possible for a long time to have both a design patent and a copyright on the same item. It's uncommon I'll grant you, but definitely possible.
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Ah, the LGPL, the "sane" GPL (Score:5, Funny)
If the LGPL were a presidential candidate, it would be Barack Obama -- "Yes we can." The GPL would be Ron Paul -- "We need the gold standard and protectionist trade."
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Re:Ah, the LGPL, the "sane" GPL (Score:5, Funny)
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The LGPL only requires such payment if changes are made directly to the LGPL'd work itself.
Re:Ah, the LGPL, the "sane" GPL (Score:5, Insightful)
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How so?
Entire work: you mean that, e.g., the entire product portfolio of IBM becomes copylefted as soon as they use GPl'ed software in one of their products?
supposedly "free": you mean that the GPL changes its clauses after you incorporated GPL'ed code into your product?
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Also, what you write is true only when one uses the GPL code on purpose, and this is well documented in the license, no surprises. It's easy to avoid too, simply by not using code that the author only makes available under this condition. In case you meant that inadvertent use of GPL'ed code can lead to these consequences: this is pure FUD, it has never happened in practice and not judge will likely ever rule that way.
G
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ugh, defination of "free" again... (Score:2)
Now would you stop playing the stupid "not free" game.
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Then the unicorn fucks your prize poodle, which has little baby unicorns. Then it fucks your cat, which also has little baby unicorns, as does your assraped pet parrot.
Stupid analogy? Meh, I'm not the one that started babbling about unicorns.
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Demanding someone elses work for free is just retarded, especially when you are a company selling your products for a hefty price-tag.
SUN+LGPL is strange.. (Score:2)
You're talking about XOpenOffice, right? (Score:1)
Sun Refuses LGPL for OpenOffice; Novell forks [slashdot.org]... One is starting to wonder what is happening...
This situation appears to parallel GNU Emacs vs. XEmacs [xemacs.org]. It's easier to defend a copyright in court if one entity owns copyright in the entire work. This is why copyright in GNU software is assigned to Free Software Foundation [gnu.org]. Sun wanted to make the same requirement in mainline OpenOffice.org, but one developer refused to assign copyright in his component and started a fork.
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In GPL , anything that is derived from that code , must also be published under GPL
So all code use must be GPL
Lesser GPL changes this , in that it allows the LGPL'ed software to be linked with non GPL'ed software ( ie it can use non gpl libraries)
This means that , if OpenOffice remains pure PGL , then there's a problem if someone wants to extends OpenOffice with properietary libraries . This problem doesn't present itself with LPGL.
Off course , there's a danger that the
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The GPL is off-course? Where was it going? It's not going there anymore? Dyslwhat?
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> The GPL would be Ron Paul -- "We need the gold standard and protectionist trade."
I think I get it...
So the GPL is like a car with clear windows - pretty much anyone can drive one, and anyone can see inside.
The LGPL adds the "tinted windows" option so it still can be driven by pretty much anyone, but people outside can't see in.
I know it's a bad analogy, but I had to respond to BadAnalogyGuy with a car analogy, espe
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The LGPL is like a car where anyone can make modifications to it or add after-market parts to it, but only has to allow that same right to people it distributes said car to for the original part of the car. The GPL, however, would be a car where any after-market parts added to it would also have to be modifiable and distributable in the same way the entire car itself was.
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Just a nitpick - it's a right you wouldn't normally have due to a copyright holder not granting that right. The copyright law itself effectively says the copyright holder can determine the distribution rights. The GPL relies on this fact to work. Without that protection, the GPL would have no teeth at all.
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Actually, I've found the LGPL almost totally useless. It works OK for C link libraries, but it has too many situations where it devolves into the GPL. If you include any LGPL C++ templates, then your program must be LGPL. If you use any LGPL Ada generics, your program must be LGPL. Its debateable whether simple C macros and #defines render you LGPL. Lisp macros are debateable too [common-lisp.net].
So LGPL really does not do what a lot of people seem to
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A damn good question. When I was a kid, public domain was the default, and you had to explicitly say if you wanted to keep copyright. Now you get a copyright automaticly and its a total PITA to get rid of the damn thing if you don't want it.
I did a lot of research on this the first time it came up. This area is sort of a "bug" in copyright law. The usual method for working out su
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Thanks, that's about my thoughts on it as well. There's a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication [creativecommons.org] available, but I have no idea if it has any legal basis.
Also, there's the thought that I might want to re-claim rights for Good as well as Evil: for example, if Evil Megacorp swiped the work and tried to pass it of as their own (and to assert rights over it). For that reason, I just use CC Attribution now, rather than trying to fight the Man.
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That's actually a *feature* of Public Domain. If you don't want Evil Megacorp doing that, keep your copyright.
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If you use GPL'ed code in your application, you have a legal and moral obligation to license your app under the GPL. End of discussion. If you don't like it, don't use GPL'ed software. Maybe the only reason the software's there is because the owners wante
Sun's lawyers "get it" (Score:5, Insightful)
I've always claimed that whenever Sun wrote a strange license, it was because their lawyers told them to.
You may recollect a small war between Sun and MS over the MS effort to "embrace and extend" Java.
I suspect we'll see more GPL3 and LGPS3 as it is shown in practice to provide the same patent potection as CDDL.
--dave
Market Fragmentation (Score:2)
It is the SAME problem that most people have with linux - Linux is GREAT
On the other hand, most people don't care about these things (GPL et al. doesn't mean m
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CC is not a Free or Open license (as it is used for the most part anyway). So I think your post is just further muddying the waters.
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I don't think you can assume a single license is appropriate for both code and non-code to begin with.
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What license would you recommend for (say) a Free video game, both the code and the assets-other-than-code
I don't think you can assume a single license is appropriate for both code and non-code to begin with.
Not all video gaming platforms run Windows, Windows Mobile, Linux, or Mac OS X. In fact, some of them have no "file system" to speak of. This means that both code and data have to be placed in the executable and linked into the same address space. As I understand the GNU General Public License, that would put the data under the GPL if any of the code is under the GPL.
Even with a file system, the GPL doesn't make clear what counts as "separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extens
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I would personally probably use a license that allowed GPL 2+ use for everything. And only accept submissions that were given to me as GPL and BSD so that I could later change it as I pleased. The Submitters would have to trust me not to close off their code. But even if I did, hopefully the part I released for Free would be enough not to receive too much spite.
I don't disagree with the GPL 3 in principal, I just don't want stuff closed off from v2 (or vice-a-versa).
If I was feeling generous I may perhap
Re:Market Fragmentation (Score:4, Insightful)
Different licences for different purposes. And remember that before these licences came along, individuals would often release software under their own (often poorly worded) licences, or sometimes not at all. Sometimes the licences are ambiguous, or the authors feel compelled to add in all sorts of arbitrary restrictions (I guess that's their right, but it's annoying when there's no logical reason). Indeed some people still do that. When I see something that's licenced under "GPL" or "CC", I know exactly what I'm getting, and don't have to worry if I can or can't do something, or if even though it's advertised supposedly "free" I'm going to download it and find it's crippleware, trialware, or has all sorts of licence restrictions.
Recently I was looking for free graphics to use for writing games, and I came across one from years ago that had some licence saying it was free, but only for Windows because he wanted to be the one to "port" it to another platform. Huh? I thought, why should the graphics need to be changed for a different platform? Thankfully I then found a later version of the graphics which he'd sensibly released under CC.
I'm not sure that comparing to Linux distributions makes sense. You might as well complain that having thousands of pieces of software available is "confusing", and this is comparable to Linux distributions. If people just choose the first licence they come across because the rest are too confusing, that's fine.
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Re:Market Fragmentation (Score:5, Insightful)
As you point out, at least with open-source licenses, there are only a handful of major ones that cover the vast majority of software. Once you know about them, you can very quickly know how much control you'll have over the code, and can confidently download/install/use/modify as required.
There is no proprietary equivalent to this kind of well-organized and relatively homogeneous licensing landscape. (Of course not! Having "named" proprietary licenses would make it too easy for a customer to compare different product licenses and select the less onerous ones.)
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Thats not necessarily a bad thing though.... If someone who has never used the command line on Ubuntu before tried Gentoo.... I think there would be lots of headaches for the developers....
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Right, because MS has a single EULA (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait, no MS has several, off the top of my head, the OS, directX, media player. Office offcourse as well, but that is a seperate product. Does IE still come with one? Silverlight?
In fact most windows software comes with a EULA all written differently.
So you claim that people have no problem understanding all these different EULA's but would be confused by the far simpler opensources licences of which only about a dozen are in actuall use?
Bad troll, no cookie for you! This is 2008, we expect more nowadays. Go on, mention soundcard drivers, why don't you.
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Too many choices is ALMOST as bad as not enough choices.
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There are only two casses where I hear people claiming to be confused. The first is trying to close previously opened project. This
Great ... now what about ZFS? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Great ... now what about ZFS? (Score:4, Insightful)
We, linux guys, want ZFS features. But we are not center of the universe. Let's just wait for btrfs to mature and Daniel Phillip's ddlink to take off.
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No, but Linux==GPL. Sun could release ZFS under a Linux-compatible license without affecting anything else (they could triple-license it).
The only reason Sun isn't releasing ZFS under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license is to prevent Linux from using it. And that tells you that Sun is lying when they are saying that they are supporting Linux; they are trying to hurt Linux and replace it with their shit.
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Sun is the largest commercial contributor to the code base which makes up a modern Linux distribution, the last stats I saw suggested that they had donated more code than the next two largest commercial supporters IBM and RedHat combined.
Hardly the actions of a company that is hell bent on destroying the OpenSource movement.
Linus needs to reconsider GPL V3 (Score:3, Interesting)
The only reason Sun isn't releasing ZFS under the GPL or a GPL-compatible license is to prevent Linux from using it. And that tells you that Sun is lying when they are saying that they are supporting Linux; they are trying to hurt Linux and replace it with their shit.
While I think you have a point, and I share (to a degree) your suspicion with regards to Sun's motivations
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Why does Sun, or anyone for that matter, have any obligation to provide source under the GPL? How do you know if Sun could release ZFS under a Linux compatible license?
Umm... (Score:2)
From what they have released, I'm rather hopeful that they will release ZFS, given time. And I think you can already use it with FUSE (although I'm not sure how stable that is just yet).
True, Sun can be funny at times about these things, but I really hope that ZFS catches on, because the ideas behind it are great.
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You mean the GPLv2, of course. It's my understanding that GPLv3 code isn't eligible for inclusion, either.
I'm happy but... (Score:1)
In other words, I hope that they are doing this because they realize (and reap) a distinct business value and not just because they're desperate. Should
Re:I'm happy but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun also developed Java still the most widely used application development and deployment platform for enterprise applications. It is also the largest single platform for Mobile Phones, way ahead of Symbian, Windows Mobile etc.
They have also developed the only credible alternative to MS's cash cow Office.
Not bad for a company apparently rubbish at Software development.
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And Sun's support of open source is pretty similar to Microsoft's "embrace and extend": they are trying to use open source as leverage for creating proprietary software businesses again. Fortunately, they are as inept at doing that as they were at selling proprietary software.
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It's about selling the complete package:
hardware, software, support
Their business is, and always has been, selling a complete package that works well together... The cost to them of producing the software was always quite high, with open source they can reduce that cost while encouraging new people to become familiar with their stuff. Sun's customers are large business/government and always have been, they want people to download their software for f
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I hope that it continues to send waves down the IT marketplace and continues to encourage organizations to provide free (libre) software.
It will...FOSS is the way of the future for software. All the big software companies know it and are either 1.) embracing it and integrating it into their business model (RedHat, IBM, Sun), or 2.) casting it out and hope they can bury it with FUD and litigation (Microsoft, SCO). More and more proprietary companies are turning to the light side as they realize this. Some faster than others.
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Microsoft and SCO depend on the sales of proprietary software, software being available for free renders their business model obsolete, and they would rather fight tooth and nail to prevent that rather than have to reinvent themselves. If software sales dried up overnight, these businesses would become hugely unprofitable and face bankruptcy.
RedHat, IBM and Sun don't depend on selling software, they all make most of their money from selling support services, although IBM an
NoeOffice (Score:2)
About that patent non-assert covenant (Score:3, Informative)
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The non-assert agreement only guaranteed that the patents would not be asserted against fully conforming implementations. But the specifications of the standard (at that time) were such that nobody, includ
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The non-assert agreement only guaranteed that the patents would not be asserted against fully conforming implementations.
That requirement is also in IBM's non-assertion covenant. (Well, IBM says fully compliant, not conforming, and Microsoft doesn't have the word fully in theirs).
But the specifications of the standard (at that time) were such that nobody, including MS, could actually build a fully conforming implementation. (Including such wonderful statements as "split the text layout in the same way that Word 95 did."(paraphrase. I'm *NOT* going to read that mess of garbage again!)
It never had anything like that in it. What it had was basically a set of flags, that someone importing documents from old versions of Word and WordPerfect (and a few others) could use to record the fact that those documents had formatting settings that OOXML does not handle, so that, for example, if you wanted to convert back to the old documen
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When Sun's license is the GPL3 or the LGPL3, then
Re:About that patent non-assert covenant, P.S. (Score:2)
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It never had anything like that in it. What it had was basically a set of flags, that someone importing documents from old versions of Word and WordPerfect (and a few others) could use to record the fact that those documents had formatting settings that OOXML does not handle, so that, for example, if you wanted to convert back to the old document format, you could preserve that. The spec also said that programs producing new documents should not use these flags.
So what your saying, is that OOXML is not capable of representing the type of formatting used in these cases?
Surely that can be considered a shortcoming, and the format should be fixed so that it can represent these types of formatting.
In terms of backwards compatibility, these old apps will never open the OOXML files directly, another app will have to convert them. Surely this conversion app should be aware of how particular formatting can be represented in both formats while doing a conversion, and shoul
Re:About that patent non-assert covenant (Score:5, Informative)
That's because Microsoft based their document on Sun's. I know that because the author of the Sun covenant is a colleague, because it was released at least a year before Microsoft copied it and because, after I pointed this out, Microsoft credited Sun for the original document.
I disagree, and I have explained why before on my blog [sun.com]. Sun's covenant is intended to empower open source developers, and Microsoft has altered the parts that make that happen. Most notably, Sun's covenant grants all patents, Microsoft's is limited to "necessary claims". That is a very major difference since it means open source developers cannot be sure they have actually been given cover by Microsoft's covenant whereas they can be certain they have by Sun's. It is deeply regerttable that Microsoft added essential claims language in this way. For those who don't follow links, I also find the conformance requirements and the patent peace asymmetry poor in Microsoft's document.
Indeed, and I am among them. However, your implication that the same applies to Sun's covenant is incorrect.
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You are right that Sun's doesn't have "necessary claims" language, and I'll agree that it is better for these kind of documents to not have such language. Sun's is better in that regard. Sun's is also better in that it covers future versions of ODF, unlike the MS and IBM covenants. However, they don't get full credit for the later, cause it does have that restriction to future versions that Sun participates in. Note that this means that if Sun pulls out of OASIS, future OASIS development of ODF is under
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No, that is not the case. In the unlikely event of Sun pulling out of the ODF TC at OASIS (which it currently chairs), future versions of the standard would be covered to the extent they implemented the specifications published while Sun was still a member. Sun's unlikely withdrawal would not invalidate previous covenant protection. Additions to the standard made once Sun was no longer a participant
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Would that be a bad thing?
Letting people add anything they want works fine with software. Why not for specifications, too?
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Indeed. Any addition can be made freely, and that addition will be the sole responsibility of those making it. Just like with software.
But... (Score:2)
We don't give a damn (Score:1)
Open Office & LGPLv3 (Score:1)
Nor does putting OO under LGPLv3 protect those downstream, since Sun cannot give away any patent rights that MSFT has.
So a significant effect of adopting the LGPLv3 seems to be that downstream users will now find it impossible to protect themselves by entering into NOVL-style deals with MSFT, beca
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- WHOIS search for endsoftpatents.org [centralops.net]
- Google search for Ben Klemens [google.com]
OK, that's the guy.