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Project: Linux  Opinions
Freedom vs. Freedom
By Mayank Sarup <Mayank@freeos.com>
Posted: ( 2001-06-21 10:10:23 EST by gatha )
A new poll came up on my friend's site. Question - What's your software philosophy? My answer - Open Source. Response - disbelief. My friend could not believe that I would pick this option over GPL. As it turns out, if you answer GPL you get a big bear hug and the whole community rises to greet you. Any other answer gets you strange looks and requires an explanation. Here is my explanation.
A little background
The GPL is considered to be the license that guarantees the freedom of your code for all time. If you use GPL'ed code in your program, you are legally bound to release the code to your program under the GPL. The idea is to protect Open Source code from people who would take it and build a commercial venture around it.
Then you have the other Open Source licenses like the BSD license, the Apache license, and the OpenLDAP public license. All these are also Open Source licenses but unlike the GPL, you are not legally bound to release your code under the same license. What they do say is give the authors credit, retain the copyright notices and include the license in their software distribution.
Ideology is important ... so is access
I firmly believe in the power of Open Source because this is the only thing that will prevent monopolies like Microsoft from coming up. Microsoft may steamroll a corporate entity, but how does it combat the diverse Open Source community?
Open Source is, for want of a better word, open. You see the code, the very core of the program. It is available for you to modify, extend and more importantly learn from. No one can deny what a fantastic opportunity for learning Open Source provides. Knowledge is power and Open Source hands you the power.
I don't think any of the Open Source licenses deprive you of the right to view and modify the source code. What then does the GPL offer in terms of access rights? I can contribute just as effectively to any of the BSD licensed projects and you will find a large part of the Open Source community working on such projects.
The moral high ground - "Free as in free speech, not, free beer"
This brings me to the moral high ground that GPL and GPL supporters stand on. The argument is that the GPL prevents un-ethical behavior by preventing an entity from grabbing the code and building a proprietary program out of it. So one sees the GPL as the guardian of the electronic equivalent of Free Speech.
The Everybuddy case
Let's look at the Everybuddy case. (URL) DSF Internet took a GPL'ed program, built a Windows port and started selling it to clients. Oh, and they conveniently forgot that they were legally bound to release the port under the GPL too. This was a GPL violation, which would have gone undetected, but didn't. DSF Internet was subsequently forced to release their code under the GPL.
DSF Internet is now working on a new version of their client and I'm sure they'll make sure that this time they get things right. After all, there's going to be a whole world out there analyzing their code to ensure that it is completely legal. Here again I'm wondering about the effectiveness of the protection provided by the GPL. What if they've learnt from the GPL'ed Everybuddy code and have now written brand new code, which differs enough from the original code. This time DSF Internet has a moral obligation, but not a legal one, to release the source. With software there's always more than one way to do your code.
The GPL protects code not ideas
We cannot deny that commercial success is a tempting goal. That will happen and you can argue that in the above case, had it been the BSD license, DSF Internet would have got off the hook relatively easy by just having to include the copyright notices and license. Does it matter in the end? The crucial link in the chain is detection. How does one exercise the GPL if they cannot detect the violations?
I don't believe that this was a failure of the GPL, however. The GPL was created to protect against such un-ethical behavior, but let's face it, if people are going to be un-ethical enough to blatantly steal from Open Source, you can also trust them to be un-ethical enough to not care for the license. At the end of the day, the license is nothing but words that can be easily ignored.
Licenses like the GPL aren't the answer to the problem of plagiarism. The answer is the Open Source community. The ssh case perfectly highlights this important point.
The ssh case
The ssh protocol as developed by Tatu Ylonen was first released into the community as an Open Source project. It soon became very popular as everyone saw the importance of this new protocol over insecure protocols like telnet. Many people joined in the development. But soon Tatu Ylonen changed the license to a more restrictive one and also started a company for commercial distribution and support of the product.
Sometime later, Björn Grönvall went back to older code, which had been released under a less restrictive license and worked on that. The OpenBSD team noticed his efforts and further enhanced his work. The code was cleaned up, patented algorithms were moved out of the code and a completely free code base was achieved. Now, some years on, we see an Open Source product that is feature complete and can easily compete with its commercial counterpart. And it must have been competing because in February, Tatu Ylonen started a big fight with the OpenSSH team over trademark issues, which seemed motivated by the popularity and quality of OpenSSH.
The ssh vs. OpenSSH case highlights the very fears that the GPL seeks to prevent. But more importantly, it proves that Open Source is a far more relevant concept. What helped bring a happy ending to the above situation was the fact that there was an active bunch of Open Source developers and they had access to the code. Open Source and the community made OpenSSH the success that it currently is.
Open Source protects itself
The BSD and BSD-style licenses come under needless criticism from GPL supporters. People argue that these licenses don't help you keep software free (Again, think of Free Speech) for all time. There is always the danger that your work might become proprietary and part of a larger commercial package. People always forget that while the BSD style licenses don't prevent a code from becoming proprietary, they also don't discriminate or deny access to anyone.
As I write this article, news filters in that Microsoft has been using Open Source from the FreeBSD project and is still using FreeBSD to run crucial services at Hotmail. My first reaction: I am really pissed, especially considering Microsoft's anti-Open Source tirade. But I soon realized that my emotions had more to do with the fact that I hate Microsoft than the fact that a commercial entity had taken code from an Open Source project without giving something back.
At the other end of the like'ability scale is Apple. Apple's Darwin is another benefactor of Open Source movement in the form of Darwin, which is based on FreeBSD and Mach 3. Apple has released code to the Open Source community, albeit under a license that has come under criticism from RMS for not being free enough.
We don't have to be worried about the Microsoft's stealing the code. As long as the code is open, there will be a free and Open Source implementation that is as viable and flexible. If one company takes code and builds a commercial product around it, then so can any other company. Simple economics of competition will ensure that companies keep costs low and give the consumer a good deal. The truly ethical companies will make sure that they give back to the Open Source community. The Open Source community on the other hand will ensure that their code always remains free and remains an excellent first choice or at least a very viable alternative.
Freedom Vs. Freedom
So, which license wins the argument? Well, I don't know. We do need licenses to set certain limits and ensure that the right people get credit. We keep getting into mindless arguments and flame wars. Open Source is O-P-E-N. All Open Source licenses give you full freedom. The GPL is Open Source, regardless of RMS' problems with the term Open Source. Open Source is Freedom. Pick the Open Source license that fits your idea of freedom and work with that. As far as I am concerned, I'll put my money on Open Source any day.
Other articles by Mayank Sarup
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