You are quite right John there are problems with the CDDL. The biggest problems are two in number. The first is that after releasing your code under the CDDL another user of the software may choose to distribute a binary version of a derivative work containing the source YOU wrote under a proprietary license of their choice. Calling this copyleft is a bit like calling a square a parallelogram. It's true, but there are better ways of describing this. It is true that such a vendor must also make the source available under the CDDL, but this is somewhat irrelevant, since your work is being distributed under a non-free license after you contributed code under a 'copy-left' license. This can and should be considered a major marginalization of the contributor. The second is that, although the CDDL contains a patent peace clause, it extends only to the code actually covered by the CDDL. For those who do not know what this is it is pretty straightforward. You can't make people agree not to exercise their right to sue people for patent infringement, but a patent peace clause is the next best thing. Any patent-holder who has signed a contributor agreement (this is another somewhat shady thing, there should be no need for anybody to file a signed and dated contributor agreement, as downloading and using the software constitutes an acceptance of any license terms specified at distribution time) loses their right to use the software for any purpose. So it does provide pretty good insurance against patent trolls who have released code that uses their patent under CDDL. But it actually ends up protecting patent trolling by allowing people to distribute code licensed under the CDDL alongside proprietary code, statically linked into one application. Thus it is in my interests as a patent-holder to release only that code which makes no use of my patent under CDDL, and simply link CDDL coverd code with my other proprietary code.
This was done ON PURPOSE by Sun for a very specific reason. They call is Vendor Flexibility. This is NOT the goal of Free software. Yes, this provides the vendor with flexibility, but it encumbers the user of the software. It is users and community contributors who are supposed to be protected by Free software. And it is further highly questionable to be encouraging patent proliferation in the IT industry. If anybody in here is a BSA member I apologize right now for what I am about to say. The patent system is badly broken. I question whether allowing it to exist at all is in the best interests of anybody. The only ongoing effect of the patent system is to facilitate companies like Microsoft forcing small competitors out of business using courtroom bully tactics. And you can see this effect all over, nowhere better than where the huge pharmaceutical giants hold the American health-care system hostage. Americans are paid pathetically poorly for the work we do on average, and that situation has come about over the last two decades directly and almost exclusively by the climbing cost of health benefits. In other words, American employers have a choice, pay their workforce what they are worth, or provide them with health-care. All brought on because our government is still in the business of granting exclusive rights to people who win a game of chance, regardless of any monopolistic tendencies which this practice reinforces. I recognize that the majority of Americans are totally convinced of the glamor of the patent system but in the case of the technology industry here are three good reasons why patents should go the way of the horse-and-buggy: 1. Patents all last 20 years. Trying to make some patents last longer and others shorter will become such an encumbered argument that D.C. policy makers won't have time to do anything useful. There is no such thing as a computer software product (and if I understand Moore's law correctly, almost no hardware product) that is relevant for 20 years. Not one. And as we move forward the relevant lifespan of a particular idea becomes even shorter. 2. No points for second place. If three companies are all busting ass towards a technology solution and 1 of them beats the other two and patents, all the R+D investment of the other two firms is lost. This is wasteful. Especially since all three of those organizations are also obliged by the patent system to keep IP lawyers on retainer to protect their R+D investments against spurious infringement suits by competitors. If there were no patents ALL that money could go to R+D. In addition, it is specifically this waste, and this attitude of non-collaboration that Free software is designed to answer. If those three companies were RedHat, SuSE and IBM they all three benefit from the innovation they have collaborated on by bringing it to their various market niches for distribution and support. In other words nobody loses out. 3. Technologists innovate because they want to, not because there is the opportunity to patent. As has been pointed out many times, if you are in the business of innovation it is its own reward. When I am working on a new technique in artificial intelligence none of my colleagues ever ask me, "Is this patentable?" I do hear questions like, "what benefit will this bring?" and "Is this marketable?" I would guess it is the same for everybody here who works in R+D. "But wait," you're saying to yourself, "The purpose of the patent system is to make innovation worthwhile. "Why should anybody ever bother if there is no possibility for patent?" A very good question. If it were illegal for me to patent it, would it be worthwhile for me to invent a better computer chip? Yes! Why? I don't need a patent to prove I invented something. I don't need a Ph.D. in astro-physics to see that given two choices for support of a product, being equal in all other ways, the innovator will give me better support than the imitator. For arguments of "A patent doesn't hurt" see argument 2. You would have more marketable tachnologies if you spent less time and money on legal protection for the ones you have. Unfortunately, while it remains legal for people to use software patents, technologists will be forced to protect themselves by arming themselves with patent portfolios. In a world where 'copyleft' means a Free software product is 100% free and unencumbered by Imaginary Property, it becomes impossible for software companies to remain competitive and make patent claims at the same time. In that way we can eschew the need to wait for Washington to understand that, as usual, the lobbyists have nobody but their own best interests at heart. In summary of my rant against patents, consider this. A country that grants exclusive rights to innovators may as well grant exclusive rights to wear brown belts, or eat pierogies. After all, if I am the only one legally entitled to wear a brown belt, and you have to buy a license to do it from me, that will make me a whole lot of money which I can turn around and invest. And if it's good for the Economy then it doesn't matter how arbitrary or fascist it is, right? Erik Johnson On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 6:10 AM, John Summerfield <[email protected]> wrote: > Jeff Savit wrote: > >> I understand that this is a point of controversy. Some will agree with >> you, some will not. >> >> I consider CDDL to be open source (as with the Mozilla Public License on >> which it was based) and so does the OSI. But I recognise that not >> everyone will share that stance. > > I note that Debian feels so strongly about CDDL that when Jörg Schilling > decided to license cdrecord only under CDDL, it forked cdrecord. I also note > other vendors have declined to distribute Schilling's version. I don't > remember all the details, but when I checked at the time I found myself > agreeing with Debian (which is never a foregone conclusion). > > Additionally, "This is a free software license. It has a copyleft with a > scope that's similar to the one in the Mozilla Public License, which makes > it incompatible with the GNU GPL. This means a module covered by the GPL and > a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. " > > http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html > > > -- > > Cheers > John > > -- spambait > [email protected] [email protected] > -- Advice > http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.php > http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html > http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375 > > You cannot reply off-list:-) > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or > visit > http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
