Bob, Again, I am not a lawyer, but my brother IS a lawyer (he specializes in intellectual property law in fact), and he and I had a discussion about the viral nature of GPL and how deep its tenticles can extend a couple of weeks ago. It is his opinion that this is NOT clear, and that my concerns are NOT complete nonsense, due to the license covering algorithms and principals, there ARE scenarios where the GPL can unintentionally infect other non GPL code. They ARE obscure, but they ARE possible.
This is a purely hypothetical scenario, but I don't believe it's beyond reason: A developer who works on SQL Server (call him Joe) also happens to play around with the Linux filesystem. At some point in the future, the powers that be in the SQL Server group at Microsoft decide to implement a feature that mirrors something in the Linux filesystem. If Joe works on this feature (or talks to someone who works on this feature),it is entirely possible that a non obvious algorithm (or non obvious implementation of that algorithm) that that person found in the source code would make its way into the Microsoft code, and we ship this in a future release. Now someone at Oracle notices this new feature in SQL server and realizes that Microsoft is copying some feature in the Linux filesystem. He asks around and discovers that Joe has been asking questions about the Linux filesystem on some of the public linux boards. And now the legal boys at Oracle sue Microsoft for violating the GPL, since it's possible that Joe has influenced the SQL server implementation. During discovery, the court suppoenas the source code for SQL server, hands it to a 3rd party expert, who discovers the algorithm from the linux filesystem in SQL server. And the court rules that due to the wording of the GPL, the entire source code of SQL server has to be released as open source. This is a REAL stretch, it relies on a lot of things happening that may never ever happen, but it IS possible. I personally have had something similar happen to me. When I realized what I had done, I immediately ripped out my implementation, and contacted LCA. The upshot is that I asked 3 other people on my team write a version of the algorithm. I then had my manager chose which of the 3 implementations we would use in the product, since I had to completely divorce myself from the implementation. Microsoft LCA is being as conservative as it is possible, even to the point of hysteria. This is a very good thing IMHO. That's why it takes a Senior VPs approval and LCA looking over your shoulder before you can even look at a piece of open source software at Microsoft. It CAN be done, but it's not easy. If you look at the IBM effort, as far as I know, the IBM employees that work on Linux don't also work on their proprietary closed source software (Barry, PLEASE correct me if I'm wrong), for the same reasons. All Microsoft employees work on proprietary closed source software, so they all need to be protected. And I DO apologize for the use of bigoted. It was unnecessarily inflamitory. Larry Osterman -----Original Message----- From: RL 'Bob' Morgan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, March 28, 2002 1:02 AM To: Larry Osterman Cc: IMAP interest list Subject: RE: Outlook express AUTH command Larry: I really don't want to dive into this swamp, but I am concerned that no one be misled by your comments. I'm sure that you are accurately reporting the approach Microsoft takes to dealing with open-source code with its products and its programmers, and I suspect you are accurately describing the sad muddle of misunderstanding that this has likely, and unfortunately, created in its technical staff about these issues. But your comments on (1) re-release of code under GPL somehow affecting previous releases of that code under other licenses, and (2) copyright potentially covering concepts (algorithms) as well as expressions are simply complete nonsense. Copyrights cover expressions, concepts/mechanisms/algorithms are covered, if at all, by patents. (There is an increasing incidence of corporate-driven royalty-free patent licensing arrangements with constraints that look a lot like the GPL, but that's another story.) Code is often, these days, released under multiple licenses; it is up to users of code to choose the license that best fits their needs, and to abide by its terms. There are, as you note, a wide range of approaches to these issues among major software vendors. The fact that IBM, for one example, which sells a huge amount of proprietary, closed-source software, also employs people to work on Linux and other GPL codebases, might lead the rational observer to think that Microsoft's position is not conservative, but hysterical. Microsoft has every right to take that position, but others are well-advised not to be swayed by Microsoft's extremism on this issue. Most of my friends at Microsoft are honest enough to admit that the point of their activity, like those of most corporations of any kind, is to make money. Sometimes this means working actively with standards efforts, sometimes it means ignoring them, sometimes it means subverting them. Sometimes it means publishing accurate specs, sometimes it means keeping them closed, sometimes it means changing them arbitrarily. In any particular case it all depends on the perception of what will bring in the most profits. And that's fine (at least as long as it's legal). Since I work for an institution that doesn't make money (or hardly any) by selling software, my motivations are different. I like software based on openly-developed, well-specified standards because it makes my job easier, permits me to think more about architecture and implementation and less about IPR arrangements, and IMHO leads to more robust systems. Sometimes that means buying commercial closed-source software, sometimes it means choosing or writing open-source software instead. I hope we can understand and respect each other's motivations and points of view without using words like "bigotry". - RL "Bob"
