Dr. Dobb's | License Overload | February 01, 2006

License Overload

As open source becomes entwined with the profit sector, the ancient GNU Public License is showing its age. Will the new version help developers avoid the legal thicket of alternate licenses?

February 01, 2006
URL:http://www.drdobbs.com/tools/license-overload/184415478

February, 2006: License Overload

Software Development

When asked to name the most important contribution to the free and open source software (FOSS) movement, most people would probably identify Apache or Linux—but they'd be wrong. The most important contribution is the GNU Public License, or GPL. Now ubiquitous, it's been 15 years since Richard Stallman unveiled GPL's second version, or GPLv2. It's the GPL, and its derivatives, that have made it possible for the FOSS community to successfully implement the software projects that have changed the face of the computing world. Today, Freshmeat.net reports that 67 percent of the FOSS projects it tracks use GPL; the next most popular license is used by 6 percent.

Once exclusively the domain of academics and hackers, New York Times reporter Steve Lohr reports that the value of FOSS software, and the hardware on which it resides, exceeds $40 billion ("Overhaul of Linux License Could Have Broad Impact," Nov. 30, 2005). With that kind of market penetration, it's no surprise that Gartner estimates that by 2010, more than 75 percent of IT organizations will have formal acquisition and management strategies in place for FOSS.

Stallman's original vision of a license that embodies the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) four basic freedoms—freedom to study, copy, modify and redistribute the software—has never lacked for critics, some of whom take issue with open source itself. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told Chicago Sun-Times reporter Dave Newbart in 2001 that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches" ("Microsoft CEO takes Launch Break with the Sun-Times," June 1, 2001).

Behind the Times

Over the last 15 years, GPLv2 hasn't been updated, so it hasn't remained abreast with rapid advances in hardware and software. For example, Web services—in which a service, instead of software source code, is redistributed—represents a paradigm not addressed in GPLv2. Also, companies developing and using GPLv2-licensed software are now more vulnerable to lawsuits, particularly because of the huge recent increase in software patent litigation. Also, software, particularly free and open source software, has become an international phenomenon. The original GPL depends on the Berne Convention—an international agreement on copyright signed in 1886—but its language reflects U.S. copyright law practice, which is often at odds with global copyright custom.

Because of issues such as these, lawyers have created a multitude of alternative licenses, ranging from the simple instrument MIT used to license the X Window System to complex offerings such as the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) under which Sun Microsystems releases Open Solaris. One of the primary reasons underlying the CDDL was Sun's desire to build in protection against patent infringement by Open Solaris users. In addition, the CDDL, like other Mozilla-derived licenses, allows users to intermix FOSS with proprietary software—which is verboten under the GPL. But let's keep some perspective: Eric Raymond has suggested to LinuxInsider.com that most new licenses are "exercises in monument-building by corporate legal departments with too much time on their hands."

It's All Politics

Also, ideological undercurrents often sway decisions to create new versions of GPL-like licenses. For example, Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz has attacked the GPL for being "predatory" and accused the FSF with promoting a hidden agenda of forcing a social model on the world. The FOSS world is rife with philosophical and technological conflicts among developers such as these; licenses sometimes become proxies in these ideological wars.

By the time you read this, the FSF will have released for comment a discussion draft of the third revision of the GPL, which you can access at www.gplv3.fsf.org. To its credit, the FSF has paid extraordinary attention to the process by which GPLv3 will be born, which is expected to include the contributions of 150,000 individuals and 8,000 organizations. Nonetheless, the criticism has already begun, mostly focusing on the closed process under which the first draft was written.

Will the new GPL suffice to stop the proliferation of open source licenses? Write me at [email protected].