Mark Preston wrote: > Will Ross wrote: >> The following link will send you to a four page introduction to Open >> Source Software published by the HIMSS Open Source Work Group. >> >> http://www.himss.org/ASP/topics_FocusDynamic.asp?faid=190 >> >> Principal authors of this document, in alphabetical order, are: >> >> Neil Cowles >> Guy Fisher >> Nilish Gupte >> Drew Ivan >> Will Ross >> >> Corrections and suggested improvements are welcome and may be sent to >> my attention for the next edition.
> Regarding the GPL your article states inter alia: > "The fourth freedom is also a restriction: by changing the source code, > the licensee agrees to release the changed code under the same free > software license. In other words, the results must also remain as open > source software, allowing the whole community to benefit from all > improvements." > > This is incorrect. There is no compulsion to redistribute changes as far > as I'm aware. If you decide to publicly redistribute changes then you > must observe the fourth "freedom", but otherwise you can keep your > changes to yourself. Yes, that is absolutely correct. If you don't distribute modified code or derivative works outside "your organisation", then the GPL does not require that the modified code or derivative works be shared or otherwise made available to others. Thus it is perfectly OK to, say, link or combine GPLed code with, say, proprietary, closed-source code, provided the resulting derivative or modified work is only used inside your organisation. Hmm, I'd better correct a few more errors (just a few...): P1, Para 1: source code is not always human-readable (eg any perl code...just joking!), but teh wikipedia definition is slightly better than yours: "Source code (commonly just source or code) is any sequence of statements and/or declarations written in some human-readable computer programming language." Also, don't conflate "commercial software" with "closed-source". Free, open source software can be commercial, and closed source software can be free or non-commercial. the use of the term "proprietary" is best avoided as well (even though I use it below), because "proprietary" means something is owned, and open source software (except public domain software) is absolutely owned by its copyright holders. P1, Para 4: Lack of previous experience with OSS is identified as a risk. Surely it is more a lack of technical expertise in the particular technology that is the risk, and that risk is independent of the licensing arrangements of that technology? Also, capitalisation has little to do with indemnification (against what? patent challenges?) or liability risks (risks of what? software failure or flaws?). Also, open source software is no more likely to infringe patents etc than closed source software (see the $1.2 billion Microsoft has just been ordered to pay for MP3 patent infringements). In fact, it is less likely to infringe patents because such infringements are spotted and usually removed before damages can be claimed by the patent holders. p2 "All open source licenses stipulate that the source code is available for inspection and reuse." Better to say "Many open source licenses stipulate that if the software is distributed or shared with others, then the source code must also be shared or otherwise made available for inspection and reuse." I say "many" because popular licenses like the MIT and BSD licenses don't stipulate anything about source code being made available - see http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php. It is really only the copyleft licenses that do that. That means that the next paragraph is also wrong - permissive open source licenses don't require that source code be made available. However, you should note that the OSI open source definition doesn't refer to "open source licenses", it refers to "open source software". Thus, the MIT and BSD licenses can and are also used to distribute closed-source software. Suggest that you don't talk about "open source licenses" but instead "licenses commonly used for open source software". P2, last para. Those four freedoms do not constitute copyleft. As the FSF says at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/ : "Copyleft is a general method for making a program or other work free, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the program to be free as well." - see the rest of that page and also the wikipedia entry on copyleft for correct definitions. P3, para1 - error re GPL requiring distribution already noted above. P3, para2: The Mozilla and LGPL are both copyleft licenses, they are not permissive BSD/MIT-style licenses. The FSF terms them "weak" copyleft licenses, while it reqards the GPL as a "strong" copyleft license. But both the LGPL and the Mozilla license (and maybe some of the others you mention) are definitely not permissive licenses - they require distribution of source code if modified versions are shared with others (and that is the core concept behind copyleft). The GPL is *not* the only copyleft license (despite what the FSF may say - but then FSF would have conniptions about your use of the term "open source software" - it insists that "free software" is the correct term). p3, para3 is also wrong - see above. There is absolutely no problem mixing GPL, Mozilla or any other copyleft code with proprietary, closed source code *within an organisation*. It is only if you want to distribute the mixed code to others that you need to worry about what the differences between open source licenses are. BSD-style licensed code can be freely mixed with proprietary closed-source code and distributed to others, and Mozilla- and LGPL-licensed code can be freely linked (but not mixed) with proprietary, closed-source code and distributed to others, while GPL-licensed code distributed to others can only link to non-GPL code at runtime. p3 para4: see above - the GPL does not enforce "openness" of IP added to GPLed code, provided that the GPLed code with teh IP added to it not distributed to others. Also, not all of the Linux kernel is under the GPL, some is BSD-licensed, and most is licensed under a modified version of the GPL (with an extra clause) that makes it clear that proprietary, closed-source code is permitted to make runtime calls to the kernel functions. p3 para5: LGPL is not permissive in the BSD sense, it just has weaker copyleft provisions than the GPL. p3 last para: A bit misleading, because many of the most successful open source vendors do sell their software - either "commercially licensed" versions as MySQL does, or extended partially-closed source versions as SugarCRM does, or some of the value-added PostgreSQL resellers do. p4 para1: I am not sure the assertions in that paragraph are true, and are certainly not always true. And I don't think the paragraph helps anyone in their understanding of FOSS. Suggest that you delete it. Refs: some very good essays at http://www.opensourcelaw.biz and also lots of good and accurate articles on open source topics and concepts on wikipedia. In fact, you might do well to just re-use some of those articles from wikipedia (with attributions, but you are permitted to re-use them under the wikipedia Creative Commons license) rather than use your own take on these concepts, which is just not quite correct in many respects as noted above. Sorry to be so negative but you did ask for corrections... others should feel free to correct my corrections! Tim C
