[Discuss] MS's patent pledge + commentary

[Thor Heinrichs-Wolpert]

Manfred, you need to take a closer look at the LGPL.  There are reasons why companies that have some very serious patent / copyright lawyers don't allow the use of LGPL Java software.  You can refer to the Apache legal position on this, as I've mentioned before at the jug meetings.  If you're selling a Java based product that uses LGPL, well that is good for the competition then *g*.

You summed up jBoss nicely, in that the software is LGPL/GPL, but the right to say you can help a client with it is dependent on giving jBoss revenue.  Which for the more hardore FOSS folks, is not in the spirit of FOSS software, of which there are many discussion threads on that topic.

Again, regarding the LGPL I'm glad you feel your legal interpretation is better than some companies that over 90% of their billions on licensing IP.  LGPL binaries can be linked to, like Oracle can link on Linux and not have to turn over their source code.  In the case of interpreted byte-code, it is not clear ... which is why the Hibernate guys have placed their opinion of the LGPL on their license page.  That non-legal and non-binding opinion is not sufficient for the legal council of the Apache Group, nor of many commercial vendors I work with.  If you really think anyone should be able to use your code and do anything they want with it, including selling it, and even claiming that they can help customers support it, then the Apache 1.0 license is something to look at.  The Apache 2.0 license is still under review at many places.  The Mozilla license is even worse for those selling IP, but way better for FOSS and those that want to have a real legal stance against patent use.

Cheers,
Thor HW


-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at vlug.org on behalf of Manfred Moser
Sent: Fri 11/10/2006 1:30 PM
To: discuss at vlug.org
Subject: Re: [Discuss] MS's patent pledge + commentary
 
Hi!

It has been very interesting following you discussions and the 
discussions on growlaw, slashdot and a lot of other places.
 
Just some remarks.

On Thursday November 9 2006 23:49, Thor Heinrichs-Wolpert wrote:
> So let me understand the logic.
>
> Yesterday you would get your butt sued off if you violated a M$
> patent.  Possibly tomorrow you can still get your butt sued off if
> you use a M$ patent.
>
> You feel cheated that in essence ... nothing has changed.

Arguably things have changed. There is a safety net setup for 
individual developers in isolation bla bla bla.. so there is more 
smoke and mirror around than there was before. As long as you 
understand that it is that and nothing else all is good.

> Now II could start to argue that the Apache license is more open
> than the GPL which has been co-opted by dual-license schemes like
> mySQL uses, 

I underdstand that. 

> or leveraged to keep non-certified jBoss users from 
> profiting ...

but not that. What do you mean? All jboss stuff is LGPL licenced (not 
apache). What do you mean by non-certified users .. 

As far as I know JBoss is somehow weirdly leveraging the trademark 
ownership.. so you can not advertise being a JBoss consultant unless 
you are certified by them because they own the trademark.

And in terms of licencing the LGPL allows you do use it pretty much 
any way including commercially. All you have to do is give back any 
modifications of JBoss stuff... but you are not forced to LGPL or GPL 
licences your stuff leveraging the libraries. In my understanding 
ideal and what Apache says happens because of user wisdom (sort 
of... ).

> So educate and elucidate, but its hard for me to get so negatively
> excited when nothing really has changed for me, since I already
> have to avoid patents of M$ and others in my code, which becomes
> harder every day.

I agree. Lets just see and wait how it pans out. The questions mostly 
is... will M$ start to sue its users like SCO did ;-) 

-- 
Manfred Moser
Vancouver Island Java User Group
http://www.mosabuam.com/vijug
skype: mosabua
http://www.linkedin.com/in/manfredmoser
_______________________________________________
Discuss mailing list
Discuss at vlug.org
http://ladybug.vlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss