Survival of Open Source 1

[venkman]

The SCO vs. IBM lawsuit has brought up an interesting question regarding open source. Regardless of how the lawsuit turns out, the possibility remains that at some point in the future closed source software could be illegally included in an open source product. As far as I can tell, in our current legal system this would devastate the open source product. This kind of problem could exist in the closed source world also (a developer at one company switches to another and takes the code with him). However, dealing with this threat in the closed source world is much easeier. It is much easier to discover an infraction of this kind in open source (after the fact) and yet much harder to recall the original product once the problem is discovered.

As a supporter of the open source movement, I put forward the question: how should the open source community deal with this threat?

-Venkman

 

[Tarwn]

I'm not sure I understand you when you say "closed source software could be illegally included in an open source product". Could you elaborate? I can read that two differant ways in conjuction to the preceding sentance and don't want to start off talking about the wrong point

_{01010100 01101001 01100101 01110010 01101110 01101111 01101011 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101}
^{29 3K 10 3D 3L 3J 3K 10 32 35 10 3E 39 33 35 10 3K 3F 10 38 31 3M 35 10 36 3I 35 35 10 3K 39 3D 35 10 1Q 19}
Do you know how hot your computer is running at home? I do

http://www.tiernok.com/hscripts/systemp.asp

 

[venkman]

gotcha, no problem. Using SCO as an example, let's say Company Foo licenses some code to Company Bar. Some of Bar's developers than contribute that code to the open source product. Assuming this is outside of the license agreement, Foo's propietary, closed source code has now been illegally included in an open source product.

Another example would be if a developer who worked at a company copied some of the company's propietary code into an open source product. Given the way many developers' contracts are written, much of the code a developer writes while being employed by a company is owned by the company not the developer, so you could see this happening in absence of malice, i.e. accidently.

-Venkman

 

[AIXSPadmin]

SCO vs IBM, this is really the kind of lawsuits that need to be thrown out because it has no basis. SCO has not shown any evidence, and they should recall the lawsuit with BSD in the 90s.

My guess is that since SCO sales are tanking, they are trying to stop the tide of revenue losses. But they also released their own version of Linux so I don't know what they believe they can sue over.

 

[venkman]

AIXSPadmin - I appreciate the response, but I did not intend to start a discussion on the validity of the SCO lawsuit. I'm more interested in the hypothetical case. Suppose SCO was actually right, what would that mean... or suppose a future lawsuit comes about where the company sueing is actually correct. How does open source stand up to this kind of attack?

-Venkman

 

[guestgulkan]

I think a definition of 'Open Source' is required at this point.

 

[welshtroll]

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1141848

Could get messy i think.

'... and then it wouldn't compile?'

 

[venkman]

I was using open source to mean GPL. I apologize, I know GPL is only one form of open source. Although, I think this problem could occur in other forms of open source (Berkley license, Mozilla...etc.)

-Venkman

 

[petey]

The open source development process is pretty transparent, at least for Linux, and I think that should be a critical factor. Depending on how court decisions pan out as these type of litigations happen, the "openness" of open source should place some burden on the owners of closed source software.

For example it's unfair to place all the responsibility on the Linux gatekeepers to make sure every line of code they check in isn't stolen. If the process is transparent, and a closed source vendor has a reason to be worried about it, they should be partly responsible to prevent it from happening.

At least that's how I think it should be.

http://www.drpeterjones.com/

News and views of some obscure guy

 

[MichealC4]

Being an open source lover myself, and a Support Tech for a popular project, I would certainly hope I have a "job" in 5 years. No, I don't get paid for my position.

Now on to the meat of my post. I had a long discussion about this in an IRC chatroom I frequent. Arguments ranging from GPL not holding up in court (which it has before), to underhanded, cut-throat deeds. I personally think that a community as large as the open source community could withstand a nuclear winter. You have the OSI who covers a very large range of licenses (among other things), you have GNU, FSF/OSS, and the "smaller" projects like BSD, Mozilla, etc. all the way down to things like the project I volunteer for.

I think that this IBM/SCO thing would have some impact, whether good or bad remains to be seen. Hopefully the judge will know something about the open source movement and would have heard about the GPL.

I am Comptia A+ Certified

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

What would happen? The open source developers would take out the questionable code, and rewrite it. Simple as that. If SCO does have a valid case, you know what will happen? All libraries, modules, and whatever else will be immediately rewritten. Nothing HUGE will come of it besides maybe a big paycheck for SCO. That that is a different story that doesn't belong in the scope of this thread.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://koldark.hopto.org/linux/

The Programmer's Knowledge Base ->

http://koldark.hopto.org/twiki/bin/view/Programkb/WebHome

 

[venkman]

You know I've never worked on a project as complicted as linux, but something seems a little too optimisitic about being able to "immediately" rewrite any illegal code. If truly complex tasks have been programmed previously with propietary code, I would think it would take a while to rewrite and test the new code.

-Venkman

 

[iSeriesCodePoet]

Well... they would start working on it... My guess a month and it would be mostly replaced.

iSeriesCodePoet
iSeries Programmer/Lawson Software Administrator

See my progress to converting to linux.

http://koldark.hopto.org/linux/

The Programmer's Knowledge Base ->

http://koldark.hopto.org/twiki/bin/view/Programkb/WebHome

 

[guestgulkan]

I asked the question earlier but it got ignored.

As I'm not a professional programmer - Can one you who do it
for a living kindly tell me what 'Open Source' really is?

Is there an actually legally binding definition or is it just based on assumption?

 

[Rhys666]

guestgulkan,
From FOLDOC, (Free On-Line Dictionary Of Computing)...
<QUOTE>
open source
<philosophy, legal> A method and philosophy for software licensing and distribution designed to encourage use and improvement of software written by volunteers by ensuring that anyone can copy the source code and modify it freely.

The term &quot;open source&quot; is now more widely used than the earlier term &quot;free software&quot; (promoted by the Free Software Foundation) but has broadly the same meaning - free of distribution restrictions, not necessarily free of charge.

There are various open source licenses available. Programmers can choose an appropriate license to use when distributing their programs.
</QUOTE>

...and to help further, a definition of 'Open Source Licence' from the same source...
<QUOTE>
Open source license
<legal> Any document that attempts to specify open source usage and distribution of software. These licenses are usually drafted by experts and are likely to be more legally sound than one a programmer could write. However, loopholes do exist.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of open source licenses:

1. Public Domain - No license.

2. BSD License - An early open source license

3. General Public License (GPL) - The copyleft license of the Free Software Foundation. Used for GNU software and much of Linux.

4. Artistic License Less restrictive than the GPL, permitted by Perl in addition to the GPL.

5. Mozilla Public Licenses (MPL, MozPL) and Netscape Public License (NPL).
</QUOTE>

... and Open Source Initiative...

<QUOTE>
Open Source Initiative
<body> (OSI) An organisation dedicated to managing and promoting the Open Source Definition for the good of the community.
</QUOTE

...and 'Open Source Definition'...

<QUOTE>
Open Source Definition
<standard> (OSD) Definition of distribution terms for open source software, promoted by the Open Source Initiative.
</QUOTE>

...hope this helps. Please note specifically the middle paragraph in the definition of 'Open Source' which states...

<QUOTE>
The term &quot;open source&quot; is now more widely used than the earlier term &quot;free software&quot; (promoted by the Free Software Foundation) but has broadly the same meaning - free of distribution restrictions, not necessarily free of charge.
</QUOTE>

...which may be contentious to some of the people here who hold the strongest positive viewpoints on Linux et al. Personally, I say each to his own and get on with life, it's not that much of an issue for me, but though t I could help here...

Take Care Y'all...


Rhys

Be careful that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a train coming the other way.

 

[Tarwn]

Or on a more basic level,
Programs are written in a programming language. Most then have to be compiled to either byte code or another intermediary language (interpreted, for example: java and .Net) in order to be run.
The portion of code the programmer wrote (as opposed to the compiled executable) is the source code, open source just means that rather than only allowing people to have the compiled executable, they are also allowed access to the actual uncompiled source code, in case they wish to make changes or simply view how something was done.

For example:
Windows is not open source. You can buy as many copies of the executable as you want, but will never get a copy of the source code with it.
Linux is Open Source. Besides getting the executable you can also get the raw source code. This source code can be altered and recompiled to make changes in the way the operating system functions.



_{01010100 01101001 01100101 01110010 01101110 01101111 01101011 00101110 01100011 01101111 01101101}
^{29 3K 10 3D 3L 3J 3K 10 32 35 10 3E 39 33 35 10 3K 3F 10 38 31 3M 35 10 36 3I 35 35 10 3K 39 3D 35 10 1Q 19}
Do you know how hot your computer is running at home? I do

http://www.tiernok.com/hscripts/systemp.asp