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GPL: why can't a lawyer understand it?
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| Walsh goes on to talk of "the irreconcilable conflict between open source
| software and its widespread use by for-profit companies." What conflict? Red
| Hat is selling open source software and always has and last I heard, they are
| starting to talk of the B word - billions. Free and open source software is
| issued under licensing terms which differ from those utilised by proprietary
| software companies and the license has nothing to do with the fact that the
| software can be sold.
|
| Let me say it plainly: free software can be sold. Yes, free software can be
| sold. There is no restriction on how much you can charge for services
| connected to free software. The word free refers to the rights granted to the
| user.
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http://www.itwire.com/content/view/18669/1148/
Recent:
Law.com article spins old confusions into new "danger"
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| Law.com recently ran a sensationalist piece by Edmund J. Walsh warning of the
| impending “dangerous real world business dispute” in store for any for-profit
| company that uses free software. Walsh points to lawsuits filed by SFLC on
| behalf BusyBox as a source of this danger, and having worked on those
| lawsuits, I hope I can provide a helpful counterpoint.
|
| [...]
|
| So why do they keep the code to themselves? We can speculate on the reasons—
| ignorance of their legal obligations, indifference owing to a history of
| non-enforcement, etc.—but it seems that in the overwhelming majority of
| cases, the decision has nothing to do with protecting a proprietary business
| model. Whether they license proprietary software or FOSS, for-profit
| companies should of course pay attention to their legal obligations. But so
| long as they do so, they need not fear any “irreconcilable conflict” between
| making money and using FOSS.
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http://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2008/jun/05/enforcement-lawsuits/
Related:
Is McAfee just asking for a lawsuit?
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| Eben Moglen and the troops at the Software Freedom Law Center may want to
| read the McAfee annual report more than once. Without this warning there’s a
| chance Eben may do a spit-take on his morning coffee.
|
| McAfee stock is down 20% in the last two months and, it seems, they’re just
| asking to be sued.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1864
McAfee throws some FUD at the GPL
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| In its annual report, Windows security software vendor McAfee told its
| investors that open source software licence terms it vaguely characterised
| as " ambiguous" might "result in unanticipated obligations regarding our
| products."
|
| [...]
|
| That statement says several things. First, it reveals that McAfee does use at
| least some open source software derived code in its products. Second, it
| betrays that McAfee has misappropriated that open source software and thus is
| committing copyright infringement, because it doesn't distribute that open
| source software derivative source code. Third, by calling its products that
| include open source software code "proprietary", McAfee shows that it really
| doesn't want to shoulder its GPL licence obligations, but instead wants to
| both have its cake and eat it too.
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http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/01/05/mcafee-throws-fud-gpl
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