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SponsorshipSponsorshipPosted May 17, 2011 20:44 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)In reply to: Sponsorship by jspaleta Parent article: Mark Shuttleworth on companies and free software
parts of it I believe completely.
there has always been tension in the FOSS community between those who are willing to make compromises in order to provide needed functionality now and those who will do without the functionality until it's free.
Mark has clearly placed himself (and Ubuntu) in the camp of those willing to so things that the other camp isn't willing to do in order to provide functionality now. He is far from being alone in that camp (Linus is another vocal member of that camp) and his description of the other camp as being 'ideologues' is not unexpected (or, in my mind particularly inappropriate, what would)
the problem that he talks about where companies start to open up and get hammered for what they haven't opened yet rather than thanked for what they have opened is a serious problem
I also don't think that anyone disagrees with the '80% complete' problem that he describes.
the need or lack thereof for contributor agreements is a matter where there is a lot more disagreement. It's good that he isn't happy with the current Cannonical agreement, I don't think anyone is and the big thing that he needs to do is to make it clear what he is trying to do with this agreement and re-write the agreement to provide the appropriate guidelines (it may be good enough to add guarantees that the software will always be available under a particular license or class of license in addition to any proprietary licenses that are granted)
I do think that it's a good thing that Mark had decided that it's acceptable for Cannonical to sign contributer agreements when submitting patches to other projects , as that should reduce the friction involved.
but as long as the FSF is requiring contributor agreements, many of the more vocal people really have a hard time arguing that the concept of a contributor agreement is evil.
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Sponsorship Posted May 17, 2011 21:04 UTC (Tue) by jspaleta (subscriber, #50639) [Link]
I still find it ironic that LibreOffice comes under fire from Mark, even though Canonical's first contribution to the codebase, as far as I am aware, was to the LibreOffice fork and not to the OpenOffice fork (either before or after the fork occured.) And I believe Ubuntu made the decision to switch to LibreOffice before Oracle jettisoned OpenOffice staffing. It's a bit revisionist of Mark to make the sort of accusations about the disruption LibreOffice caused to OpenOffice development when Canonical was more than eager to jump ship and support Libreoffice so quickly. I wonder if Canonical had taken a stand and said you know what, we are going to continue to stick with Oracle and OpenOffice because we "trust" Oracle to continue to provide sound leadership for the codebase..would that have changed the history of things. Ubuntu is soooo popular, if Canonical had decided to stick their neck out and support Oracle's leadership wouldn't that have been a game changer?
If he's going to talk the talk, Canonical needs to walk the walk. And with LibreOffice, Canonical walked away from corporate management of the codebase and embraced open co-development. Mark can't have his cake and eat it to, try as he might. Canonical showed real leadership in how quickly they embraced Libreoffice.
And he still gets the details of the Qt copyright assignment history wrong. Qt had a BSD relicense nuclear option for like a decade+ tied to its dual licensing model. If the open development tree closed down, a non-profit entities had the authority to relicense the last available open development codebase as BSD. That is a _huge_ offset against bad faith proprietary re-licensing. He continues to gloss over that history when holding up Qt. I've even said that Qt's nuclear option seemed like a fair trade-off to protect long term contributor interests. More disturbingly I don't believe the Harmony drafts make room for that sort of creative long term balance of interests..at least not explicitly. So if anything Harmony may push that sort of pragmatic balance of corporate and contributor business interests off the table as a future model for engagement.
Shuttleworth is not one to let little things like "facts" get in the way of his goals to craft perception and opinion towards the ends that best suit his personal interests.
-jef
Sponsorship Posted May 17, 2011 21:05 UTC (Tue) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
"but as long as the FSF is requiring contributor agreements, many of the more vocal people really have a hard time arguing that the concept of a contributor agreement is evil."
I don't think anybody considers it "evil" and any such portrayal is very unhelpful however many would consider copyright assignment as problematic when commercial companies use it and it is especially problematic when people point to FSF as a justification for it as they invariably do because FSF is a non-profit organization with a legal mandate for serving the public while commercial organizations are not and FSF copyright assignment gives a legal guarantee and FSF's own history makes it clear that they would never release contributed code under a proprietary license.
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/assigning-copyright
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 17, 2011 21:19 UTC (Tue) by quaid (guest, #26101) [Link]
"the problem that he talks about where companies start to open up and
get hammered for what they haven't opened yet rather than thanked for what they have opened is a serious problem"
So I work for Red Hat on community organizing, and have been involved with many discussions directly with real software vendors (ISVs) who range from a spectrum of "all code is already open source but no community around it" to "maybe we'll open source something one day."
This assertion that companies get treated poorly in open communities is not an uncommon fear of these companies. But where is the evidence?
When I have observed these many companies interacting in open communities, or thinking about it, or doing anything, it is rare that I have seen a truly poor interaction that originated from someone in the community. Some mis-communication happens, but rarely, rarely is it an outright attack of the sort Mr. Shuttleworth tells hearsay about.
Aside from the general recognition to treat all potential contributors fairly, even corporations, in the last decade there has been a growth in professional open source developers who impact the quality of discussion in the open communities. I'm sure there ARE companies who have bad experiences, and I'm sure that a percentage of those are not directly at fault for that reaction. But is it an actual problem? Or just perceived as one?
What are the real facts? How close is the reality to the unsupported assertion Mr. Shuttleworth seems to simply repeat?
Considering that this is cornerstone of his long-thinking on the subject, I would hope he has at least done some market research. Not just talked with peer executives at other ISVs, who all repeat the same urban legends without any more evidence than hearsay.
My contrast, I turn to Dr. Dan Frye, who is the VP of IBM's open source developer group. In the below video, he talks about how THEY made the mistakes in their initial forays in to open source development. He didn't blame the community for their reaction. He fixed his house. Today, IBM has a process for evaluating how to join an open source community so they can avoid stomping in with giant boots-of-destruction:
http://video.linux.com/video/1381
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 17, 2011 21:26 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I've witnessed numerous cases where companies start to open something and have people attacking them publicly (either for making mistakes as they start opening things up, or because they aren't being 'open enough' about some things, frequently about development for example)
This isn't just Mark imagining things.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 17, 2011 21:35 UTC (Tue) by quaid (guest, #26101) [Link]
"This isn't just Mark imagining things."
Agreed, nor am I imagining my own experience. (Which is that more companies strangle themselves in the open source crib than get strangled by external folks.)
But I'm not claiming my experience is the way things are, everywhere, and asking others to accept that anecdotal experience as unverified fact. Nor am I using it as the basis for an unpopular position.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 17, 2011 21:38 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
I didn't read it that he is basing any position other than 'this is a problem' on the basis of these sorts of actions.
if saying that is an unpopular position, then more people need to take such an unpopular position.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 17, 2011 22:32 UTC (Tue) by quaid (guest, #26101) [Link]
"I didn't read it that he is basing any position ..."
If the problem isn't as he describes it, then perhaps his conclusion of what to do is not the right answer?
His direction regarding CLAs is at least called in to question if he is basing that direction on the opinion that there is a wide spread problem if there is no evidence of that problem other than anecdotal.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 18, 2011 1:06 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
as I was reading this, I didn't see him basing any actions or positions on the problems that companies have opening things, I read that as a separate complaint from the problems of getting the last 20% done. and I read him trying to deal with the 20% problem as the reason for pushing contributer agreements (along with the possibility of dual-licensing projects)
I don't think that his solution will solve the problem, but I think he's entitled to try it and see if he can make it work (there are a lot of companies out there that I would not have thought that there was enough to make it work)
I would disagree with straight copyright assignment, but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with the right to dual license (which is not the same as making proprietary derivatives). I see this as giving people who want to use the code two options 'support the project by contributing code' or 'support the project by contributing money so that the project can buy time to generate code'.
I know that some people are not willing to accept that as choice for their code (especially if they are outsiders, not part of the organization that would be getting the money), and to those folks I would say, find a different project to contribute to, there's no shortage of worthy causes. I will also guarantee that you will not always agree with the choices the organization makes, and for that it doesn't matter what organization, be it Cannonical or the FSF.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 18, 2011 8:33 UTC (Wed) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link] Hi,I've witnessed numerous cases where companies start to open something and have people attacking them publicly As have I. I would say that there are a number of factors at play here:
This is a really hard situation to be in as a company. If you mess up your first interaction with a project, you can spend years repairing the relationship & regaining trust. You do it in baby steps, by showing that you're learning, by entrusting individuals to represent you in communities, and by having those individuals do things in the community's interests. On the other hand, I have seen companies progressively increase their interaction with communities, and each additional step is met with approval and thanks. Or companies that are forthright that while their product is free software, that they're going to maintain control of their core product, and that's been accepted by their user community. The difference is in the fall from grace and loss of trust. So my best advice to companies thinking about interacting with a free software community is: start small, be honest with yourself & others. Gain trust through your actions, and then handle that trust carefully. Dave.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 18, 2011 22:08 UTC (Wed) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Sorry, but Sun did not fix their problem with Java (witness the heat Oracle is now raining on Android over that same code) or their other open source projects (placing OpenSolaris under their expressly not GPL compatible license). So it isn't that they invested years of hard work in regaining confidence, they lost whatever they had fair and square and did precious little to gain it back.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 19, 2011 7:23 UTC (Thu) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link]
> Sorry, but Sun did not fix their problem with Java
The main problem people had with Java is "it's not released under the GPL". Then it was. But that was too late, the confidence had been lost, and so people were looking for the catch, and they found it - "the conformance suit isn't available under a free licence".
If Sun's first announcement was "Java released under GPL, but Sun to maintain control of Java trademark" then I think everyone's reaction would have been "fair enough, woohoo". Because this was a 2nd or 3rd step, after an initial "freeing Java" announcement (and in combination with the history around Solaris), people were saying "boo, hiss - holding something back".
Which I think was mostly unfair.
> placing OpenSolaris under their expressly not GPL compatible license
Since when does every free software licence have to be GPL compatible? It would have been nice, but releasing it as free software is better than not releasing it as free software. This is a case in point of what Mark is saying - "not enough" is an all too frequent chant.
Cheers,
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 19, 2011 15:09 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>The main problem people had with Java is "it's not released under the GPL". Then it was. But that was too late, the confidence had been lost, and so people were looking for the catch, and they found it - "the conformance suit isn't available under a free licence".
You forgot 'passing the non-free conformance test is a condition for being able to use the numerous wide-reaching patents over which we will eventually sue you'. As catches go, a massive lawsuit probably counts as quite a big one.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 19, 2011 15:13 UTC (Thu) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link]
> You forgot 'passing the non-free conformance test is a condition for being
> able to use the numerous wide-reaching patents over which we will > eventually sue you'. As catches go, a massive lawsuit probably counts as > quite a big one.
Ah, I don't care about patents, and I encourage every other free software developer not to care about patents. It is an issue orthogonal to software freedom and the licence of the software.
Dave.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 19, 2011 15:34 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>Ah, I don't care about patents... It is an issue orthogonal to software freedom
Do you have any justification for this rather extraordinary assertion?
> and the licence of the software.
Yes, obviously.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 19, 2011 15:39 UTC (Thu) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link]
>> Ah, I don't care about patents... It is an issue orthogonal to software
>> freedom > Do you have any justification for this rather extraordinary assertion?
The Linux kernel is patent encumbered. The GIMP saved GIFs when LZW was still patented.
This does not prevent either from being free software.
Mind me asking what was extraordinary about my assertion?
Dave.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 20, 2011 21:49 UTC (Fri) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
If you aren't allowed to use the software without explicit permission of a dictator (patent owner), how can you call that software free? It fails the first rule of software freedom.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 20, 2011 23:36 UTC (Fri) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link]
> If you aren't allowed to use the software without explicit permission of a
> dictator (patent owner), how can you call that software free? It fails the > first rule of software freedom.
Then no software is free.
Dave.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 21, 2011 5:40 UTC (Sat) by faramir (subscriber, #2327) [Link]
>Then no software is free.
Are you saying that ALL software is covered by
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 21, 2011 6:29 UTC (Sat) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] It seems plausible to me. There are so many of them, so vague and so broad. And software contains so many parts that might infringe. It seems unlikely that there would be no overlap, for any program that does anything useful.Either way, how can you prove for any piece of software that it's not covered by any patents?
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted Jun 5, 2011 5:47 UTC (Sun) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]
I'm pretty sure that any non-trivial piece of software is covered or might seem covered by at least one patent. And it doesn't really matter if the patent is stupid & obvious, or that the patent only seems to cover the software at first glance if you look at it from a weird angle but really doesn't, if a company with deep pockets sues you over it, you're screwed.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 21, 2011 9:54 UTC (Sat) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]
There is a reason why patents are such a huge pain in the ass of free software; it's not orthogonal at all. But let's not overstate the problem. All software with a free software license can be considered free until it is actually found to infringe a patent.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 21, 2011 10:30 UTC (Sat) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
and the patent holder decides to not license it for free software
for example, the RCU patent has been licensed to all software under the GPL IIRC
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 22, 2011 8:22 UTC (Sun) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link]
If a patent license is available, it is not a infringement anymore.
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 22, 2011 21:13 UTC (Sun) by dneary (subscriber, #55185) [Link]
> All software with a free software license can be considered free until it
> is actually found to infringe a patent.
I would say *proven* to infringe a patent. And that needs a court case. And a bucketload of money. And not $1 bills.
So, all software is free, and the patent system is broken, and keeps approving patents which, if challenged, would be invalidated. So, as I said, I don't worry about patents, and I don't think a patent should ever be a reason not to write a piece of free software.
Cheers,
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 22, 2011 23:11 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
patent infringement doesn't need to be proven to put a company out of business, a lawsuit is enough (it takes a lot of money to defend against a patent lawsuit)
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 27, 2011 7:04 UTC (Fri) by AdamW (guest, #48457) [Link]
dave: your position is all very well in the abstract, but it looks fairly absurd in the real world. As was pointed out, Sun was rather up front about the fact that it had a big patent stash, that you had to pass the conformance tests to be immune from the big patent stash, and that the conformance suite was not F/OSS and was not going to be. it's a bit oblique of you to pretend that all this is irrelevant to the practical issue of people actually believing that Sun wanted them to be able to exercise their F/OSS rights in relation to Java. You and I might think software patents are fundamentally broken and everyone should ignore them, but the District of East Texas doesn't, and people who want to hang on to their assets are going to listen to that...
Evidence or urban legend - "problems" companies have Posted May 29, 2011 18:50 UTC (Sun) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
However, the district of East Texas doesn't (much as it might like to) have jurisdiction over the world.
For example, where I live, software patents are EXplicitly NOT permitted. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop the EPO granting them in contravention of their constitution :-(
Cheers,
Evidence - "problems" companies have Posted May 22, 2011 7:57 UTC (Sun) by nhippi (subscriber, #34640) [Link]
Yes, the evidence is quite out there. Watch for example the Nokia Maemo saga. Lots of people would complain that some modules of code (which those people had no intention of ever modifying) were not open source. Complaining rather than celebrating the fact that company moved from 100% closed source to 90% open source.
Evidence - "problems" companies have Posted May 22, 2011 8:09 UTC (Sun) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link]
In my two+ years of working with Nokia on Calligra for Maemo and MeeGo they have always been exemplary. Working upstream, in our bugzilla, in our code repository, with us, coming to sprints and events, taking responsibility to grow the community by engaging with students. And with immensely valuable results, like much better import filters, new text engine for Words and lots, lots more.
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