Trilight Zone

[tricore]

According to a recent Reuters report, the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) board was going to be looking into Novell Inc.'s rights to continue selling its version of the Linux operating system. That, however, is not actually what will be happening.

Eben Moglen, the Software Freedom Law Center's executive director and an FSF board member, explained: "This is a story being hyped by the Reuters guy who wrote it."

The Reuters quote was: "The community of people wants to do anything they can to interfere with this deal and all deals like it. They have every reason to be deeply concerned that this is the beginning of a significant patent aggression by Microsoft."

"What he actually asked me," said Moglen in an email interview, "was 'Is it true that some members of the community want GPLv3 to keep Novell from distributing future versions of GPL'd software?' I said, 'Yes, the Free Software Foundation is opposed to the deal, and is thinking about what to do; there will be a new draft soon [of the GPLv3]" (GNU General Public License Version 3).

Therefore, "The actual quote he prints is entirely accurate, but his lede destroys the context and is making unnecessary waves."

The FSF, which govern's the GPL (GNU General Public License), has long been concerned about Novell's recent patent deal with Microsoft. The Samba Group has stated that it wants Novell to abandon the deal. Addtionally, open source activist Bruce Perens started a petition that accused Novell of betraying the free software community. And, one group of free software supporters launched a website with the self-explanatory name, Boycott Novell.

But, as FSF founder Richard M. Stallman himself has said, the Novell/Microsoft patent agreement is not in violation of the GPL version 2.

Stallman added, "It turns out that perhaps it's a good thing that Microsoft did this now, because we discovered that the text we had written for GPL version 3 would not have blocked this, but it's not too late and we're going to make sure that when GPL version 3 really comes out it will block such deals."

What Moglen was talking about on Feb. 2 was the next draft of the GPLv3. Earlier, Stallman had explained that the GPLv3 "will block the kind of language used in the Novell/Microsoft agreement. We're going to say not just that if you receive the patent license, but if you have arranged any sort of patent licensing that is prejudicial among the downstream recipients, that that's not allowed. ... The precise words, we haven't figured out yet. That's what Eben Moglen [as the FSF's general counsel] is working on now."

It's that draft, and how its language would affect companies with such patent deals, that Moglen and the rest of the board will be discussing in several weeks. There is little doubt that the GPLv3 will include language forbidding such patent arrangements. It is the feeling of many free software advocates that while the Microsoft/Novell deal was true to the letter of the GPL, it wasn't true to its spirit.

What's not clear, though, is whether the majority of the Linux code will ever be governed by this revised open source license. Linus Torvalds, the operating system's chief creator, has made no secret of his affection for the current GPLv2 license. Many leading Linux developers have also objected to the current, and weaker, patent language in the most recent GPLv3 draft.

In a position paper, the developers wrote, "Therefore, as far as we are concerned (and insofar as we control subsystems of the kernel) we cannot foresee any drafts of GPLv3 coming out of the current drafting process that would prove acceptable to us as a license to move the current Linux Kernel to." Therefore, leading Linux developers such as Andrew Morton, James E.J. Bottomley, Greg Kroah-Hartman, and Christoph Hellwig have stated that they "reject the current license proposal" for Linux.

Novell, itself, seems to have done well in the business world with its Microsoft partnership. As for this latest affair, Bruce Lowry, Novell's director of global public relations, said that "Novell has no comment at this time, we'll see how the issue is resolved and then react."