gpl

VMware: A "significant portion" of our technology may include open source

VMware has been publicly chastised for allegedly violating the GPL in its proprietary vmkernel technology. Now, in VMware's most recent quarterly report, the company calls out widespread use of open-source software in its products.

It is customary for public companies to overstate risks to their businesses in an effort to forestall shareholder lawsuits. Better safe than sorry, seems to be the thinking.

Even so, I find it fascinating to see the extent of VMware's admission to using open-source software in its products, especially in light of the criticism noted above. Here is the relevant section of VMware's 10-Q in its (near-) entirety:

Our use of "open source" software could negatively affect our ability to sell our products and subject us to possible litigation.

A significant portion of the products or technologies acquired, licensed or developed by us may incorporate so-called "open source" software, and we may incorporate open source software into other products in the future....We monitor our use of open source software in an effort to avoid subjecting our products to conditions we do not intend.

Although we believe that we have complied with our obligations under the various applicable licenses for open source software that we use such that we have not triggered any such conditions, there is little or no legal precedent governing the interpretation of many of the terms of certain of these licenses, and therefore the potential impact of these terms on our business is somewhat unknown and may result in unanticipated obligations regarding our products and technologies.… Read more

Appcelerator switches from GPL to Apache to boost adoption

We've seen a groundswell of support for the GNU General Public License (GPL) and its variants among commercial open-source companies, including MySQL, Funambol, Alfresco, SugarCRM, and others. But Appcelerator is bucking the trend and changing from the GPL to the Apache Public License for its Rich Internet Application developer tools.

Why the switch? According to a blog posting from Appcelerator CEO Jeff Haynie, it's all about adoption and matching one's code (and its license) with one's community:

We've clearly heard a very resounding theme: GPL is not the right license from a community perspective because … Read more

'Happy Birthday to GNU' marks 25 years

The Free Software Foundation has released Happy Birthday to GNU to celebrate the silver anniversary of the operating system.

The film, presented by actor/comedian Stephen Fry, offers a basic history of GNU's Not Unix (GNU). Fry describes how Richard Stallman announced a plan in September 1983 to develop a free-software, Unix-like operating system called GNU, and adds that the Linux kernel was re-released under the GNU General Public License in 1992. The GNU/Linux combination provided the first completely nonproprietary way for people to run a PC.

Peter Brown, the Free Software Foundation's executive director, said the … Read more

Free but not easy: A guide to open-source compliance

A friend pointed out to me that the Free Software Foundation's "Practical Guide to GPL Compliance" has some intriguing details. One, in particular, caught his eye.

Most people familiar with open source understand that distribution of modified open-source software compels the modifying party to make source code available for the derivative work. However, as the Free Software Foundation points out, there is no obligation to make it easy to compile source code:

The GPL contains no provision that requires distribution of the compiler used to build the software. While companies are encouraged to make it as easy as possible for their users to build the sources, inclusion of the compiler itself is not normally considered mandatory. The Corresponding Source definition--both in GPLv2 and GPLv3--has not been typically read to include the compiler itself, but rather things like makefiles, build scripts, and packaging scripts.

In other words, source code must be available, but the onus isn't necessarily on the code author to pave the way to a perfect binary. I personally believe that it's in the developer's interest to make it as easy as possible to compile as the benefits of open source start the moment the receiving party can contribute and participate in the code, but it's not a requirement.

One other thing that caught my eye was the Free Software Foundation's clarification as to whom a code author must distribute her source code:… Read more

So you want to comply with the GPL...

For years people have suggested that open-source adoption would go even faster if only open-source licenses like the GNU General Public License (GPL) were easier to understand. My personal belief is that "It's so hard to understand!" tends to be an euphemism for "I really want to pilfer this open-source software but its terms don't let me!" After all, the terms of the GPL have been explained repeatedly, including by the Free Software Foundation itself, which authored the GPL.

Regardless, the Software Freedom Law Center is now making it easy to understand the GPL and related licenses … Read more

VMware and the GPL: Round two

The "Is VMware violating the GPL" question is circulating again (Matt Asay follows up his own post here) so I thought it would be useful to dust off an Illuminata Perspectives that I wrote when this same thing cropped up about a year ago. I've excerpted the most salient points from the original post and added a little updated commentary.

Background:

The basic issue is as follows. As most folks involved with servers know by now, VMware ESX Server is a server virtualization product that allows multiple "guest" operating systems to co-exist on a single … Read more

Maybe everything (not just VMware) violates the GPL

Larry Augustin, a venture capitalist and early open-source entrepreneur, made a really good point via e-mail in reference to my post about VMware violating the GPL. A range of people in the open-source community has been pointing the finger at VMware for allegedly creating derivative works of Linux in its ESX virtualization technology without contributing those changes back.

Larry's suggestion? If VMware is violating the GPL, so are a lot of others...with Linus Torvalds' (apparent) express permission. With Augustin's permission, here is part of his e-mail to me:

This is a longstanding general problem. It is not … Read more

VMware joins Linux Foundation--while reportedly violating the GPL

Today the Linux world broke out the champagne to celebrate VMware joining the Linux Foundation. I agree. It's good news.

What it doesn't resolve is the allegation that VMware is in active and conscious violation of the GPL. Some of these allegations appear to be well-founded. VMware's lack of response to the allegations is not golden, especially in light of its embrace of the Linux Foundation.

Here's the problem with how VMware apparently uses Linux (though there's still an open question as to whether VMware does, in fact, use Linux, the evidence points pretty strongly to VMware's use of the open-source operating system).

Products like VMware ESX Server and Citrix Xen Server divide each computer into one or more virtual machines. The virtual machines provide logical memory, CPU, and device resources to guest operating systems. ESX Server, like Citrix Xen Server, uses a hypervisor to mediate between the virtual machines and physical resources of the computer, and an embedded operating system (distinct from guest operating systems) to implement essential virtualization operations.

ESX Server and Citrix Xen Server both use Linux as the embedded operating system. This is where the trouble begins.… Read more

The OSI digs into license proliferation again...but why?

Someone needs to tell the Open Source Initiative, Google, and others who fret about license proliferation that the market has already cut down the number of actively used licenses to just a small handful: L/GPL, BSD/Apache, MPL, and a few others (EPL, CPL). Even so, the OSI has decided to kickstart its stalled movement to reduce the number of open-source licenses condoned by the OSI.

As OSI board member Russ Nelson writes in the board minutes:

Mr. Nelson moves that we form a license proliferation committee to evaluate all existing licenses into two tiers - an upper tier … Read more