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This is not new news if you have been following my posts on the Free Software Foundation (FSF) GPL V.3 the last two months but a Reuters story that crossed the wires Monday in anticipation of this week's announcement of the next draft is full of misleading statements. Below, I have duplicated excerpts of a version of the story (I don't know if this is exactly the same as the Reuters feed or if it has been amended by the Boston Globe, where I saw it) along with six comments concerning inaccuracies:

"The non-profit group that owns rights to much of the Linux operating system says it will seek to undermine a controversial deal between Microsoft Corp. and Novell Inc..
1. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) does not “own the rights to” much of the Linux operating system. Many of the components of open source software (OSS), much of which when put together could be considered an operating system, are licensed under the terms and conditions of the FSF’s GNU General Public License (GPL) V.2. That the GPL V2 license was used by many diverse OSS communities to protect their rights is very different from “ownership.” A lot of other such software is licensed under the Apache, Berkeley, Mozilla and dozens of other OSS licenses.
2. The FSF’s leader, Richard Stallman, has said there is nothing inconsistent with the GPL V.2 and the Microsoft-Novell alliance. Nothing being done with GPL V.3 changes the wording of GPL V.2.

"The two companies announced a partnership in November that included a cross-patent protection agreement that some critics say implies Microsoft has legal rights to Linux, the cooperatively developed software that is gaining ground with corporate users.
3. Steve Ballmer has been saying this explicitly and loudly for years; this point has nothing to do with the FSF or the Novell Alliance.
.......

Free software, which is also known as open-source software, refers to computer programs that are available to the general public to be used, revised and shared. Products from companies like Microsoft are considered proprietary and their code generally cannot be revised and shared.
4. The FSF will talk to you for hours about why free software and OSS are not the same. See my recent post on the subject.

....

"Microsoft and Novell say their deal lets powerful server computers running Windows and Linux systems communicate better. The pact is part of a broad sales, marketing and development partnership that brought Novell $348 million in upfront payments.
5. They communicate fine today. The primary purpose of the deal is to give large corporations using both Linux and Windows a comfort level that such interoperability will continue. Almost all other meaningful open source software (the so-called LAMP stack, runs on Windows.

"Novell will be able to continue to distribute its current Linux products without violating the terms of the new license. But financial analysts have said that it will need to upgrade that software to remain competitive with rivals such as Red Hat Inc. (RHT.N)
6. You have to ask Red Hat if they will adopt the new GPL license before the previous statement has any effect

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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