Business News

A New GPL

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is reportedly working on a new version of the famous GNU General Public License (GPL), the software license that is at the heart of the Open Source movement. This new license, which will be known as GPL 3, will address problems that have developed over the years with the current GPL. Prior to the GPL, community-minded Open Source programmers typically either placed their creations in the public domain or else adopted a license that put few restrictions on what the user did with the code. Early Open Source licenses, such as the BSD license, actually let developers take the code back out of Open Source by incorporating it in their software without making the result available to other developers. The copyleft protection of the GPL revolutionized Open Source programming by stating that the code can be used by developers as they wish, but the developer must make the resulting code available under the GPL to other developers. The GPL served the Open Source community well, ushering in the rise of Linux and the GNU software treasury. However, the recent attention to Open Source in the courts, and the ongoing preoccupation with concepts like intellectual property, have convinced the Free Software Foundation that the GPL is due for an overhaul. According to Eben Moglen, general counsel for the Free Software Foundation, "Software and the industry have changed radically over the past 10 years, so there's a certain amount of cleaning up to do that simply has to do with settling the license into the contemporary environment." Over the years since the GPL was first developed, some of the focus of lawyers and litigants has shifted from copyrights to patents. A patent is not related to the code itself but is granted for a concept that the code implements. Many Open Source advocates reject the whole idea of software patents, and some are concerned that big corporate patent holders could use their patents in court as a weapon against Open Source. The GPL 3 license will include language designed to place Open Source software in a stronger position with regard to patent attacks. GPL 3 will also address some of the differences in copyright and patent laws among the nations of the world. The Free Software Foundation says it would like to base GPL 3 on input from a large and diverse group of stakeholders. They will begin soliciting input for the new license in the near future. http://www.gnu.org http://www.gnu.org/fsf/fsf.html

Friend for a Day

In real life, a period of calm follows the resolution of a dispute, but not in the high tech industry. Microsoft agreed to pay Novell US$ 536 Million (EUR 404 Million) in settlement of a suit regarding Novell's NDS for Windows NT. Novell then agreed to drop their support for the European Commission's case against Microsoft - a fact that could compromise Novell's new role as an Open Source titan, that is, if it were the end of the story. However, a few days after this settlement, Novell announced a new round of litigation against Microsoft. The new lawsuit alleges that Microsoft unfairly used its market position against the WordPerfect word processing application. Microsoft called the charges "unfortunate and surprising," adding, "Given that Novell hasn't owned WordPerfect for eight years, their claims should be barred by the legal doctrine called the statute of limitations." Novell's general counsel Joseph LaSala Jr. responded, "While this lawsuit is unrelated to Novell's current business, the claims are important and hold considerable value for Novell. " There was also news in Novell's other high-profile legal saga. Novell recently challenged SCO's right to make copyright claims regarding Unix, stating that, when Novell licensed Unix to SCO, Novell retained the Unix copyright. Both sides have produced sections of the contract and its various amendments, and each has claimed the contract gives them control of the Unix copyright. The discovery that Novell owns the Unix copyright would, of course, derail SCO's bold (and yet unproven) claim that SCO is entitled to royalties from all Linux users because Linux contains Unix code. In a development that the Groklaw website calls "extraordinary," Novell has now produced the minutes of a 1995 Board of Directors meeting that supports Novell's contention that Novell retained all the copyrights to Unix. According to legal experts, this new evidence could tilt the balance of the ambiguous contract documents in the direction of Novell, thus worsening the already weak legal position of SCO in its battle against Linux.

End of an Era

IBM officially announced that it is about to sell its personal computer division to the Chinese company Lenovo Group for US$ 1.75 Billion (EUR 1.32 Billion). The end of IBM's PC business is a milestone for the computer industry. IBM was not the first to market a personal computer (in fact, they were conspicuously absent from the first generation of PCs), but when they finally lent their clout and reputation to the PC market, they gave a new power and credibility to the growing industry. Intel and Microsoft both rose to prominence through their alliances with IBM, and some old time users still call an Intel-based system an "IBM compatible" or an "IBM PC." http://www.ibm.com http://www.lenovogrp.com

Open Source in the Public Sector

A new group with plans to promote the use of Open Source software in the public sector was launched recently in the UK. The Open Source Consortium (OSC) is made up of companies that provide code and services relating to Open Source software. The OSC hopes to raise awareness of Open Source and to promote the use of Open Source software in government. The OSC also wants to help smaller Open Source companies band together to bid collectively for large government contracts. Mark Taylor, executive director of Open Source Consortium, states "We stand as an independent voice representing a purely open source perspective. We don't have any proprietary interests - we don't have any proprietary middleware or hardware we want to sell. We can give vendor-neutral advice on open source systems." http://www.opensourceconsortium.org

Mandrakesoft Rebounds

French Linux vendor Mandrakesoft has announced revenue for the last fiscal year of EUR 5.18 Million (US$ 6.18 Million), up 33 percent from the year before. This increase represents a return to profitability for Mandrakesoft. According to Mandrakesoft, the main reasons for the growth were licenses, online sales, and Mandrakelinux User Club subscriptions, Part of the recent success is also due to new contracts with various agencies of the French government, including the French Ministry of Equipment, which replaced 1500 Windows servers with Mandrakelinux systems. Mandrakesoft also points to recent software successes, such as Mandrakelinux 10.1 Official, Mandrakelinux Move 2 (a live-CD product), and the Globetrotter USB mobile hard drive. http://www.mandrakesoft.com