Google Sued Over Patents On Open Source Code

from the bad-reporting dept

We've discussed in the past how reporters often contribute to misconceptions about the patent system and patent disputes. They commonly report that those sued for infringement are accused of "copying" or "taking" an invention from another company, when it's much more common for infringement lawsuits to involve independent invention. Now we've got another example. Red Bend Software is the latest in a long list of companies suing Google for patent infringement, claiming that Google violates its patent 6,546,552 on "difference extraction between two versions of data-tables containing intra-references."

Specifically, Red Bend claims that Google's Chrome browser violates this patent by including an algorithm, called Courgette, that lets Google push compressed software updates. Of course, plenty of companies have come up with various ways to push compressed software updates over the years, so I'm at a loss as to why it requires a patent... but that's a different issue. The problem here is the reporting on this lawsuit by Mass High Tech and reporter Galen Moore. First, he claims that this lawsuit suggests Google's "open-source Chrome browser isn't so open source after all." Huh? I've read that sentence over and over again and I can't figure out how a patent dispute would mean that Chrome isn't open source. This kind of reporting suggests that a patent simply wipes out the type of license covering a software.

The second questionable bit is in talking about how Red Bend (like plenty of patent holders putting forth lawsuits) is claiming willful infringement, which gives a company triple damages if found to be true. So what's the evidence of "willful infringement." A claim that "Google has known about the conflicting patent since September 7." September 7th? That's a month and a half ago. The patent was issued in 2003. And Courgette was first used in July. It's difficult to see how anyone could claim with a straight face willful infringement when you just informed them of your patent, and that happened after the software was already in use. You don't even need to know much about patents to at least point these facts out.

But, of course, you wouldn't know any of that from the article. Instead, your average reader would likely read this, thinking that Google somehow "took" this invention from Red Bend and that somehow negates Google's "open source" license on Chrome.

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Surprise: Sequoia To Open Source E-voting Code

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

Sequoia Voting Systems had been one of the "big three" e-voting providers, along with Diebold (Premiere) and ES&S. All three companies were notorious for massive amounts of secrecy and many, many, many reports of faulty machines with weak security. Sequoia's biggest problem -- which showed up in election after election after election after election -- was that it seemed to count the votes differently every time. That seems like a rather big flaw. The company also threatened computer security expert Ed Felten after the State of New Jersey asked him to look at Sequoia's code.

Just last week there were reports that Sequoia had accidentally revealed some of its source code -- but this week Sequoia has surprised a lot of people by announcing plans for a new e-voting system which will have open source e-voting software included. The code will be released to the public next month.

This is definitely a big (and surprising) step forward. The Wired link above tries to speculate why -- but I'd argue the most obvious reason (not mentioned in that article) is that Sequoia's two largest competitors, ES&S and Diebold/Premiere merged last month, suddenly making Sequoia a much smaller player in the space (I believe it was already the number three player...). Going open source isn't just a way to improve its code and improve trust in the machines, but also a way to stand out against a much larger competitor.

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Even The Open Source Community Gets Overly Restrictive At Times

from the stop-worrying-about-the-freeloaders dept

Reader Brad sent in a fascinating post from a little while back by Steve Streeting, a software developer who created an open source 3D rendering engine called OGRE. In the post, Streeting describes his evolving view on open source licenses. He basically points out that that open source licensing -- the kind that forces anyone who uses the code to open up and contribute back their code -- is actually creating an unnecessary restriction on developers as well, and it often doesn't make sense to have such restrictions. It's really quite a fascinating post, that brings up a number of issues I hadn't really thought about too much. For example, he points out that the restrictions aren't very helpful for code, because the best code contributions are from those who are contributing code willingly anyway -- so the restrictions are meaningless for them. Separately, he points out that the restrictions on licenses, such as the LGPL, simply are too complex and too restrictive for some developers, and the end result is fewer developers, which is the last thing you should want:

It was at this point that I realised that my previous opinions about permissive licenses not providing enough safeguards against exploitation for an open source project were off-base. In practice, open source projects don't really need protection, because their best contributors are going to be there regardless (yes, I realise the GPL provides more protection to end users who want to get at the source code, that's not what I'm considering here). 'Freeloaders' -- people who use or modify the open source project for their own ends but give no code or community contribution back -- are always going to exist; even under the GPL it's easy to freeload, if you make your money from hosting services for example, and thus license choice has little impact on the scale (if not the nature) of the freeloading. Besides the annoyance of 'that guy took my work and made some money out of it' -- which you have to accept as an inevitable outcome of going open source, so stick to making proprietary software if that bugs you -- freeloaders have little negative effect on an open source project, and actually their use can contribute positively to [publicity for the project]. The key is to recognise that in practice you can really just ignore freeloaders, and instead concentrate on maximising the positive contributors in your community.

So, if we acknowledge that the people whose contributions we actually want are those who contribute voluntarily, regardless of license, we quickly come to the conclusion that all that really matters is the size of the community. It's a fair assumption that for a given project there is a relatively stable percentage of users who will choose to contribute back (the percentage itself varies per project, but is fairly stable per project in my experience), therefore the easiest way to increase your contributors is to just increase your user base. Forget about trying to coerce people into being 'good' members of the community, just trust that the percentage will be there and will track your overall numbers.

One way in which to attract more users is to make the licensing simpler and more easier to understand. Programmers hate legalese, and a simple, clear license is bound to be more attractive than our LGPL (with static link exclusion), plus OUL option. It's for this reason that from OGRE 1.7 we're switching to the MIT License.

I find this fascinating on a number of different levels. The argument he's making -- within the open source world -- pretty much mirrors the arguments we make to copyright maximalists: that focusing so much on "freeloaders" is pointless, they're going to exist. Instead, focus on building your overall community, adding value, and setting up a model that works for those people. It's amazing to think that the excess restrictions in some open source licenses creates something of a parallel world, with parallel issues.

Once again, it all seems to come down to the same thing: restricting what others do is rarely a good strategy. Let people do what they want, and focus on providing the most value for the largest community that wants to be a part of what you're doing.

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Waste Of Money: Pro-Linux Group Has To Buy Microsoft Patents

from the instead-of-doing-something-useful dept

A bunch of folks have been submitting the news that the "pro-linux" group the Open Invention Network recently purchased some former Microsoft patents via a third party. A few quick thoughts:

• It seems like a shame that money had to be spent by these groups just to protect themselves from lawsuits for developing useful software.
• Microsoft apparently refused to let OIN bid directly on the patents, leading to the middleman. This seems rather petty. If Microsoft really doesn't want the patents any more and isn't planning on doing anything with them, why not sell them to a pro-Linux group?
• If Microsoft had no problem getting rid of them, I'm guessing they're not among the couple of hundred patents Microsoft keeps insisting Linux violates, without ever actually naming any specific patents.

All in all, this is a pretty depressing story, showing money being wasted, rather than put to good use doing actual innovation.

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IBM Claims Software Patents Promoted Open Source Software?

from the but-how? dept

The folks over at Slashdot point us to an interesting tidbit buried in IBM's amicus brief for the Bilski case, where the company claims that software patents helped drive open source software development:

Patent protection has promoted the free sharing of source code on a patentee's terms--which has fueled the explosive growth of open source software development.

The original report linked above conveniently drops the "on a patentee's terms" which makes for a better story, but is a bit misleading. It's that clause that explains what IBM means by this claim, though it shows absolutely no substantiation of the claim, whatsoever. And that's because even with that clause added back in, it makes no sense. At all. Yes, software patents may make some developers more willing to share code with others... but that's got nothing to do with open source development or the growth of open source software. The situations where a patent makes a developer more comfortable showing source code are clearly cases of proprietary software, where the developer/patent holder is worried about the software being copied. With open source software, there's no such "worry" because that's actually a feature of the system.

So why does IBM simply get to make stuff up in a filing for the Supreme Court?

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Open Source Textbooks Gaining Traction

from the very-cool dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about the very cool business model being used by "open source textbook" company Flat World Knowledge. Basically, you could read the books for free online, but there were also other ways to get the book in other formats where you would have to pay. The company seemed to be gaining traction lately, with a nice round of funding, and now it's being reported that 40,000 students at over 400 colleges and universities will be using Flat World texts this fall. That sound you hear? It's an old stodgy market getting disrupted.

Related to this, Slashdot points out that here in California, where the state was running a free digital textbook competition, the results showed that some of the open solutions won the competition and were considered better reference materials than the ones provided by big publishers. In fact, the e-texts from a small company called CK-12 seemed to do quite well -- 3 of the 4 online texts that were deemed to meet 100% of the state's standards all came from CK-12.

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For East Texas Patent Lawyers: Maybe Next Time Don't Sue Random Open Source Developers

from the just-a-thought dept

Back in June, we noted a curious addition to a rather typical patent troll-type lawsuit filed in East Texas. Along with a bunch of big name companies (Google, Yahoo, AOL, Amazon, etc.) were two "unknown" or at least little known companies that happened to be based in East Texas. The reasoning seemed pretty obvious. Courts have been given a bit more leeway in transferring patent lawsuits lately, after years of attempts by patent hoarders to have them all in East Texas (notoriously friendly to patent holders). So, what better way to insist that East Texas is a good place for the lawsuit than to include some East Texas companies (any ones will do!)? Except, it appears that the lawyers for the patent holder (McKool Smith -- a favorite among the patent hoarders) didn't do much research on at least one of those "companies," named CitiWare. Slashdot alerts us to the fact that CitiWare was basically just a small open source project from one guy, who hoped to turn it into a business, but couldn't find any customers and shut it down. That guy has now turned the CitiWare.com website into an angry open letter to the patent holder and to its lawyers, demanding that they drop the case against him. Next time, perhaps those busy lawyers in East Texas will actually take the time to figure out if the companies they're suing exist, let alone infringed on whatever bogus patent they're representing.

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It's The Misuse Of Trademarks That's A Problem...

from the not-the-idea-itself dept

While lots of lawyers like to dump trademark law into the same category as patents and copyright as "intellectual property," it's somewhat misleading. They come from entirely separate parts of the law and the purpose of trademark is entirely different than patents or copyright. Patents and copyright is to create incentives to create. Trademark is designed as consumer protection. Lumping them together, unfortunately, has made companies look to treat trademark law more like patents and copyright, and that's been a problem. Unfortunately, over the past few decades, this has resulted in an extension of trademark law beyond its original intentions (specifically the whole concept of "dilution" which is a relatively recent addition to trademark law).

Of course, it's also true on the flipside, that criticism of trademark is coming from the same folks who criticize copyright and patent law. The latest, as sent in by many of you, is an interesting piece in PC World suggesting that the open source community should be just as angry about trademark law as they are about patents and copyrights. I'm not sure that's true. While I do agree they should be angry about the misuse of trademark law, and any attempt to make it more like copyright or patents, the fundamental nature of trademark law (to avoid consumer confusion and potential harm from that confusion) still makes sense. The problem is when people falsely believe that trademark law allows you total exclusion, rather than only in cases likely to cause confusion. So, let's absolutely fight against the abuse of trademark law... but it's not necessary to throw out its initial intended purpose.

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Bill Introduced For Open Source Health Records... But That's Only A Start

from the would-it-even-be-possible dept

Senator Jay Rockefeller, who recently wondered if the world would be better off had the internet not been invented has now introduced a bill that would encourage the use of open source technologies for healthcare records. It's nice to see that he's not entirely anti-technology.

Still, this is a lot easier said than done. As we recently saw, an attempt to create open source technology for emergency dispatch was forced to shut down after a proprietary vendor threatened the open source project with patent infringement. You can pretty much bet that any open source healthcare solution would likely face the same sort of problem. Would anyone in the Senate like to protect such open source projects from those who abuse the patent system to block such projects?

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Will A New MySQL Rise From Former Employees?

from the open-source-wonders dept

With Oracle purchasing Sun, there's been some fretting over whether or not the company will harm MySQL (which Sun bought a few years back), as it's certainly a competitor to Oracle's core database product. My guess is that Oracle's a lot more interested in owning Java than harming MySQL, and am hopeful that Oracle recognizes the benefits of supporting MySQL. But, even if the company does go in the other direction, it's difficult to see much to worry about. The demand and opportunity for an open source database is so big, that others would quickly pop up (and, of course, there are already other open source databases out there -- some of which are already considered superior to MySQL). However, even more interesting is the news (pointed to us by Tim Lee) that many of MySQL's main developers have left the company (or are planning to), and one of MySQL's founders is already looking to hire other key MySQL developers to fork the software and keep on developing the software. Sometimes it's pretty difficult for a fork to get the attention it needs to survive, but certainly it can work, especially if there are concerns about the direction of the original product.

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E-Voting Firms Recognize That Open Source Software Exists... But Seem Confused About What It Means

from the not-too-surprising dept

We've never quite understood why e-voting software shouldn't be required to be public information. For the sake of actually allowing an open and transparent voting system, it's hard to understand how any governing body would allow proprietary software to be used. There's simply no way you can prove that the system is fair and transparent if the counting mechanism is totally hidden away. For years, the big e-voting firms have simply shrugged this off, but it looks like they're at least open to discussing it. A trade group representing the big e-voting firms has put out a whitepaper discussing open source voting systems, where all they really do is show that they don't actually understand much about open source technologies.

First, they claim that, even though they understand that "security through obscurity" isn't effective, "there remains some underlying truths to the idea that software does maintain a level of security through the lack of available public knowledge of the inner workings of a software program." Computer Science professor Dan Wallach does a nice job responding to that claim:

Really? No. Disclosing the source code only results in a complete forfeiture of the software's security if there was never any security there in the first place. If the product is well-engineered, then disclosing the software will cause no additional security problems. If the product is poorly-engineered, then the lack of disclosure only serves the purpose of delaying the inevitable.

What we learned from the California Top-to-Bottom Review and the Ohio EVEREST study was that, indeed, these systems are unquestionably and unconscionably insecure. The authors of those reports (including yours truly) read the source code, which certainly made it easier to identify just how bad these systems were, but it's fallacious to assume that a prospective attacker, lacking the source code and even lacking our reports, is somehow any less able to identify and exploit the flaws. The wide diversity of security flaws exploited on a regular basis in Microsoft Windows completely undercuts the ETC paper's argument. The bad guys who build these attacks have no access to Windows's source code, but they don't need it. With common debugging tools (as well as customized attacking tools), they can tease apart the operation of the compiled, executable binary applications and engineer all sorts of malware.

Voting systems, in this regard, are just like Microsoft Windows. We have to assume, since voting machines are widely dispersed around the country, that attackers will have the opportunity to tear them apart and extract the machine code. Therefore, it's fair to argue that source disclosure, or the lack thereof, has no meaningful impact on the operational security of our electronic voting machines. They're broken. They need to be repaired.

The next oddity, is the claim that if a problem is found in open source software, then it won't get fixed as quickly, because you have to wait for "the community" to fix it. That completely mistakes how open source software works. Again, Wallach points out how silly that is, noting that plenty of commercially-focused companies run open source projects, including maintaining and contributing code to the project. If these companies were to open source their code, there's nothing stopping them from continuing to improve the security of the code. There's no need to wait around... The paper has other problems as well, which Wallach discusses at the link above. To be honest, though, it's quite telling that these firms don't even seem to understand some of the basics of how open source software works.

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Law Firm Twisting Open Source License Ruling To Mislead About Open Source Software

from the that's-not-what-it-says-at-all dept

When CAFC ruled last summer about the legality of open source licenses and their connection to copyright in the Jacobsen case, we were a little worried that the ruling appeared to conflict with some other copyright rulings, in a way that could eventually cause problems. However, on the whole, it was a good ruling, putting weight behind the core concept behind open source/Creative Commons-style license, which mostly rely on copyright to backstop what those licenses require. However, a law firm has been running around trying to push the idea that the ruling means using any open source software increases your copyright infringement liability. Of course, that's only true if you don't abide by the terms of the license. In other words, the risks are no different than if you're using proprietary code: if you obey the terms of the license, there's no problem. If you don't, there is. All the ruling really stated was that there could be greater damages to those who don't abide by the license. So, really, the law firm's advice seems to be directed entirely to firms who plan to not live up to the requirements of an open source license. That's hardly an increased liability for those who comply.

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Open Source Text Book Company Flat World Knowledge Gets Funded

from the disruption-on-the-way dept

We wrote about Flat World Knowledge, the open source textbook provider earlier this year, in noting how the textbook market was ripe for disruption. It's great to find out that the company has now received $8 million in funding -- which seems to go against a rash of recent stories from publications about how companies building business models with a big "free" or "open source" component would have trouble raising money these days. FWK, of course, is using free properly -- as a part of a larger business model where scarcities are charged for, but infinite goods are given away freely. Who knows if it will succeed, but it's nice to see the vote of confidence from investors.

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TomTom Caught Between Microsoft Rock And GPL Hard Place

from the divide-and-conquer dept

Last month we covered Microsoft's patent infringement lawsuit against GPS device maker TomTom. As Mike noted, this is a pretty clear example of abusive patent litigation. The patents in question are so broad that it's virtually impossible to innovate in this space without first paying Microsoft for the privilege. Obviously, that prospect doesn't bother Microsoft's top patent lawyer very much, but it should be a serious concern for the rest of us. Since Mike wrote that post, another angle of the case has gotten a lot of attention from tech blogs: whether it's possible for TomTom to settle the lawsuit without running afoul of the GPL, the free software license that covers the Linux code that Microsoft claims infringes at least three of those patents.

A bit of background is helpful here. When the Free Software Foundation drafted version 2 of the GPL, it included a clause saying that if a vendor is forced to place restrictions on downstream redistribution of software covered by the GPL (due to a per-unit patent licensing agreement, for example), that vendor loses the right to distribute the software at all. This clause acts as a kind of mutual defense pact, because it prevents any firm in the free software community from making a separate peace with patent holders. A firm's only options are to either fight to invalidate the patent or stop using the software altogether. This clause of the GPL actually strengthens the hands of free software firms in their negotiations with patent holders. A company like Red Hat can credibly refuse to license patents by saying "we'd love to license your patent, but the GPL won't let us."

This creates a problem for a company like Microsoft that wants to extract licensing revenues from firms distributing GPLed software. Ordinarily, a patent holder sues in the hope that it will be able to get a quick settlement and a nice revenue stream from patent royalties. But the vendor of GPLed software can't settle. And if the patent holder wins the lawsuit, the defendant will be forced to stop distributing the software, depriving the patent holder of an ongoing revenue stream. Either way, the trial will generate a ton of bad publicity for the patent holder.

In a comment at the "Open..." blog, prominent Samba developer Jeremy Allison charged that Microsoft has tried to sidestep this agreement by basically forcing companies to sign patent licensing agreements that violate the GPL under the cover of non-disclosure agreements. Allison argues that TomTom got sued because it was the first company to refuse to participate in this fraud. It's important to note here that Allison can't prove the existence of these agreements, so we should take his claims with a grain of salt. But if these charges are ever conclusively proven, they would have explosive consequences. The Free Software Foundation would likely insist that such firms either cancel their agreements with Microsoft (likely triggering a patent lawsuit) or stop distributing GPLed software altogether (which could be a death sentence for a firm that relies on such software).

Regardless, TomTom is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. The GPL has left the firm with only two options. It must either fight Microsoft's patents to the death (literally) or it must settle with Microsoft and immediately stop distributing GPLed software. Given how deeply-entwined GPLed software apparently is in TomTom's products, that second option may be no option at all. So expect a long and bloody fight in the courts.

One likely result will be to create a serious PR problem for Microsoft. Some people might remember the infamous GIF patent wars of the 1990s. When Unisys tried to collect patent royalties on the GIF format, the Internet community responded by switching in droves to the PNG format. In the process, Unisys earned a ton of bad press and a terrible reputation among computer geeks who care about software freedom. Microsoft risks a similar fate if it pursues this litigation campaign against Linux. And given that Microsoft is in a business where innovation is king, it's probably not a good idea to become a pariah in a community that includes many of the world's most talented software engineers.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Patents Being Abused To Put Your Life In Danger

from the dangerous-consequences dept

For years we've been writing about various abuses of the patent system, and how they damage innovation. There are times when we hear about abuses of the patent system that actually put lives in danger -- often around the pharmaceutical industry. At least in that case, you can sometimes understand the basic reasoning (even if it's actually incorrect). However, we recently came across an example of the patent system being abused in such an egregious manner that it's putting many lives at stake...

Bob Austin, who for many years has worked in major metropolitan fire and EMS departments, had the idea of creating an open source medical dispatch system. Such a system would have numerous benefits. Beyond being a free system, it also would allow best practices to easily bubble up in a way that actively would help save lives. If another EMS department could improve on the system, they easily could do so and contribute it back to the community.

One of the parts of the system was a project called Cards 911, which was a useful document for use by emergency dispatchers. Basically, it gave them a simple script to follow when an emergency call came in, asking where they were, the nature of the emergency, how many people injured, etc. The answers to certain questions would lead the dispatcher to different parts of the document using hyperlinks. The entire document (and, yes, it was just a document) was created in OpenOffice Writer and was offered either as a document file or a PDF file. In other words, this was basically a script with hyperlinks in it, that helped an emergency dispatcher get the necessary information, and help the caller as quickly as possible -- and it was free and open.

Who could possibly complain about that?

Apparently the lawyers for a company called Priority Dispatch Corporation, who sent a legal nastygram listing out ten patents that the company held, which the lawyers implied the Cards 911 project violated. Remember, this is a script written as a document. The lawyers were careful never to actually say which of the ten patents the cards violated, but simply listed them all out and said "Our investigation has revealed that the... Guide Cards may infringe on one or more of Priority Dispatch's patents and/or copyrights." Not only that, but the lawyers then demanded that all physical and electronic copies of the documents be destroyed.

Given the position they were in, as open source developers doing this for the good of the public, rather than as any sort of business endeavor, the folks involved in the project complied with the demands of the lawyer. They destroyed everything, both electronic and physical and agreed not to work on any emergency dispatch systems in the future. The project is no longer available, and our emergency dispatch systems are that much worse off because of it.

Furthermore, in investigating this further, it appears that it would be impossible to craft any sort of competing product that lives up to NHTSA and ASTM official standards without violating Priority Dispatch's patents, based on the what the company seems to believe they cover. If you would like to see all ten patents for yourself, they're listed here:

• 5857966
• 7106835
• 6607481
• 6106549
• 6078894
• 6076065
• 6053864
• 6010451
• 6004266
• 5989187

The whole situation is rather sickening, and I'm really hoping that folks here might be able to help see if we can get this project back on track. Priority Dispatch's decision to scare these open source developers into submission for merely offering up a free project to help save lives is really a rather disgusting use of the patent system, and obviously goes against the very purpose of that system: "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts." Instead, such things are being actively stymied in a way that puts all of us at risk.

The folks working on this project have no money (and no intention of making any money from the project), but they could use some help. In my discussions with them, they simply wanted me to know about their story, and weren't asking for help per se, but it would be great if we could, as a community, come up with ways to get this project moving again, so that we can all be safer. If anyone has thoughts or ideas on how to help Bob, please let us know in the comments, and let's see what can be done. At the very least, please help spread this story and let others know about it.

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OLPC Finally Decides to Open Source Its Hardware

from the it's-about-time dept

The many travails of the One Laptop Per Child program have been widely chronicled - after developing a robust, innovative laptop for the developing world, Nicholas Negroponte's educational project failed to garner the reception he expected. One of the main reasons for this was OLPC's belief that the market could not do better than their small project: instead of seeking the best products for the children of the developing world, competition was anathema to the OLPC group.

But news that the hardware from OLPC's second version, XO-2, will be open sourced, gives hope that things are starting to change. Speaking to the Guardian, Negroponte says, "The XO-1 was really designed as if we were Apple. The XO-2 will be designed as if we were Google - we'll want people to copy it. We'll make the constituent parts available. We'll try and get it out there using the exact opposite approach that we did with the XO-1." Open hardware is an exciting new arena for innovative designs and, by embracing it, OLPC will create a new opportunity for entrepreneurs to create the best laptop for the developing world (or even the developed world). Also, instead of picking an established manufacturer from East Asia, open sourced hardware specifications will allow the developing world's emergent technology industries to compete, strengthening the communities OLPC seeks to assist.

Kevin Donovan is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Why Couldn't Cisco And FSF Come To An Agreement?

from the this-makes-no-sense dept

There's lots of talk in tech circles about the fact that the Free Software Foundation is now suing Cisco for copyright infringement, over Cisco's misuse of GPL'd code in its Linksys routers. What seems odd is that this got as far as it did. The issue with Linksys and its use of GPL'd code has been talked about for years, and it seems like there should have been a simple solution from the very beginning: Cisco/Linksys should have made the code available, as per the terms of the license. So why didn't they? Well, the details from the case suggest that, while Cisco did drag its feet in releasing the code, FSF then came back with additional demands, specifically:

• Cisco needed to appoint a "free software compliance officer."
• Cisco needed to try to inform all past customers of its failed compliance
• Cisco needed to pay FSF a chunk of money

It appears that it's these issues over which the two parties disagree and the lawsuit was filed. While I'm sympathetic to the FSF's position, this might be going a bit too far. Nothing in the GPL requires someone to set up a "compliance officer." Yes, due to Cisco's foot-dragging, you can see why FSF would ask for such a thing, but it's difficult to see how it should be required, or eventually involve a lawsuit. Also, it's unclear why Cisco should need to inform people. The folks who actually care are likely to hear about this anyway. Yes, Cisco violated the GPL, and yes, it was slow to get itself in compliance, but FSF seems to be demanding an awful lot in response.

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You Don't Have To Sell Software

from the seriously dept

Reader Philip writes in to ask about our thoughts on a commentary on News.com by Dave Rosenberg concerning Sun's open source strategy. Rosenberg seems very concerned that Sun has decided to forego trying to sell software directly:

Sun's approach--at least the way I'm reading it from Jonathan Schwartz's statements, is about making the software totally free and trying to sell support and hardware. This clearly diminishes the value of the products and doesn't offer a mechanism that encourages people to pay for software.

It's difficult to see what Rosenberg is worked up about here. Sun seems to be following pretty closely an economically sound approach to a market: using infinite goods (software) to make scarce goods (hardware and services) more valuable. That's a lot more reasonable than using infinite goods to try to get people to pay for more infinite goods. There's no reason why Sun needs to encourage people to pay for software, and there are many reasons why they should not try to make people pay for software.

Yet, for some reason, Rosenberg seems to think that this strategy is somehow damaging to the open source movement:

It also puts an unnecessary burden on the notion of open source--such that if Sun is wrong, everyone else will look wrong too.

Why? If, as Rosenberg notes elsewhere in the article, Sun's open source strategy is different than other companies', then such a failure should be seen as a failure of Sun's model, not a strategy of embracing open source. There are plenty of reasons why Sun may (or even is likely to) fail in this endeavor. The Sun brand name has been tarnished. People may not find the hardware or services Sun is selling as providing enough value compared to alternatives (even with the software included). On the whole, it's not clear what's compelling about Sun's offer compared to the alternatives, and that's its biggest challenge. But that hardly reflects poorly on open source software or on the idea of not selling software.

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When We Said We Were In Favor Of Open Source Voting, This Isn't What We Meant

from the a-bit-more-openness-please dept

We've often wondered why various governments haven't mandated open source e-voting systems. After all, if a free and democratic election is supposed involve true transparency into the voting process, it's hard to see how proprietary software can be allowed. However, the big e-voting companies have been staunch supporters of keeping their solutions proprietary. Except... it may turn out that Premier Election Solutions (which was better known as Diebold until it changed its name to get away from the mocking laughter) is actually using some open source software... and not abiding by the license. Artifex Software is suing Premier for apparently using its GPL'd software and not adhering to the GPL terms. Of course, we should note that Diebold (er... Premier) has suggested in the past that it might eventually open source its own product, so maybe a little legal nudge will push it over the edge.

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Andrew Keen Predicts The End Of Gardening And Pickup Basketball

from the if-it's-not-paid,-it's-not-worth-doing dept

So I already wrote about Andrew Keen's ridiculously laughable assertion that the economic downturn would spell the end of all unpaid activity online -- such as blogging, contributing to Wikipedia and developing open source software. The whole thing was so laughable, I asked Keen to put some money behind some of his predictions, though to date I have not heard from him. I'm guessing this means he really does not believe what he writes.

However, I have to bring this up again, because Jesse Walker over at Reason Magazine does such an amazing job demonstrating the basic logic fallacy in Keen's thinking that it's too good not to repeat:

Andrew Keen predicts an end to backyard gardens, playground basketball, basement jam sessions, amateur painting, and open mic nights for the duration of the economic hard times, because "the idea of free labor will suddenly become profoundly unpalatable to someone faced with their house being repossessed or their kids going hungry."

Oh, wait. Hold on. He only predicts an end to unpaid-but-pleasurable labor on the Internet

No one ever does anything that doesn't result in immediately getting paid, apparently.

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