CSC 379:Week 2, Group 5
GNU General Public License
Overview
The General Public License (GPL) was created in 1989 by Richard Stallman as originally a way of allowing many projects to share source code under a unifying license. In simple terms, a project licensed with the GPL can be freely distributed and charged for, but any and all distribution must provide the source code to the consumer as well. Also, according to the GPL, any work which uses code licensed by the GPL must license itself with the GPL. It ensures that any software that was derived from open source remains available to the general public and freely distributable.
- GPL - Version 1.0, February 1989
- To guarantee the freedoms to share and change free software.
- To make sure the software is free for all its users.
- GPL - Version 2.0, June 1991
- Further restricted rights from Version 1.0
- Updated to cover distribution of the program or programs as a whole.
- Linux kernel released under this license version
- GPL - Version 3.0, January 2006
- Further restricted rights from Version 2.0
- Updated to the cohort the ability to make changes to software and to compel for changes to be distributed so everyone benefits from the intellectual energy used to make changes.
- Main purpose, the abolition of DRM as a social practice.
Discussion Questions
What is the impact of GPL use?
In general, GPL software will impact certain groups, companies, or organizations differently and others in the same manner.
| Impact On: | Positive: | Negative: |
|---|---|---|
| Personal Software Users | The reduced monetary cost to acquire and use of software to achieve a personal task or action. No need to hack a commercial licensed product if a free version is available and easy to use. | The learning curve and time to evaluate the software and its stability. In most cases GPL software lack proper documentation or specific key features. Although we can look at the code, we may be ignorant to the intentions of the programs and the community that created it. |
| Developers - Open Source | To encourage evolution of software without having to re-invent the wheel. To continue and encourage the open source movement. | An unwelcome change of a supporting program feature will generate chatter and distractions and delays from the ultimate goals of the developed system. A breach of commercial copyright laws by the application or supporting programs. |
| Developers – Commercial | Developer can investigate and analyze already used and solved approaches to a problem and their core issues. Temptations caused by cost and times lines constraints may lead to illegal use of GPL code in commercial systems. | Alternative free version of application is already available and free to users meaning that creating similar commercial version of the program will have to achieve higher appeal to justify its cost. |
| Commercial Software Companies | Companies may be able to replace commercial software with open source counterparts to save money and increase profits. A good example of this is replacing their internal bug tracking system from a costly commercial one to bugzilla. | Replacing a commercial program may require the company to incur extra maintenance cost and need to hire an experienced administrator. |
| Non-profit organizations | A community may be experienced and willing to provide a good solution or product to keep the operating cost down. | Replacing a commercial program may require the company to incur extra maintenance cost and need to hire an experienced administrator. |
| Government | The government may be able to replace commercial software with open source counterparts to save money. Encourage others to use GPL software. | Replacing a commercial program may require the company to incur extra maintenance cost and need to hire an experienced administrator. |
| Education and Research | A community may be experienced and willing to provide guidance for students and researchers to analyze and learn how to solve certain types of problems or tasks. | The student or researcher will have to spend extra time learning and understanding a developed strategy of the program or source code is poorly written and no documentation is available for it. |
What are the ethical considerations for licenses like GPL that require their adoption if work licensed under it is incorporated into a parent work, with additional stipulations that include the acceptance of the most current version of the GPL license?
The main ethical issue with a license requiring the acceptance of the most recent version is that it forces the user to sign a contract which has not been written yet. While the user could agree with the current version, a future version may change in such a fashion as to restrict the liberties of the user beyond what they would agree to. This setup provides a large amount of leverage and power to the writers of the new versions of the license because they can force a huge tree of people into new agreements. If a small, but widely used section of code was licensed under the GPL and the new version required additional profit restrictions, it would affect every project which used that code, as well as the projects which used those projects ect. At the same time, if the license is changed in such a way that it benefits the users then that too can affect a large group. The main ethical issue is the amount of power given to the writers of the license and how it is used.
What ethical considerations are highlighted by the patent sharing/protection agreement between Microsoft and Novell?
According to the patent sharing/protection agreement, Microsoft will collaborate Novell to support SuSe Linux as an alternative deployment platform to Windows. The partnership is said to make it easier for users to run both Windows and Linux-based systems and according to Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, is said to "bridge the divide between open-source and proprietary source software" Microsoft make Linux pact with Novell.
Although the agreement is beneficial to both companies and its customers, it does raise some ethical concerns. Novell's open source software is under the GPL license which requires software to be distributed and modified freely but under the Microsoft/Novell agreement a royalty is being paid. In another sense it almost seems like Microsoft has bought out Novell. Although sources say the agreement won't affect Novell's antitrust suit against Microsoft, it is somewhat hard to believe that two companies collaborating together would be suing one another. Infact, under the agreement Microsoft promised not to file patent suits against developers creating code for SuSe. Perhaps Microsoft hopes this will encourage Novell to drop their suit.
Another ethical issues arising out of the agreement is that of loyalty, or for that matter, lack there of. The open source community has never been fond of Microsoft and Novell is build on software developed by the open source community. This has angered a large part of the open source community and "in short, now that Novell has chosen not to hang together with the Free Software community, they've chosen not to do so with them."
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