07.20.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Patents, FOSS, Interview at 4:57 am by Roy Schestowitz
Microsoft and Software Patents
There have been some interesting developments in the past day or so. First and foremost, Microsoft is being sued again and this time it’s due to encryption.
Microsoft Corp. is being sued by a closely held company for allegedly infringing two encryption patents in the Windows operating system.
Maz Technologies, based in Wilmington, Del., “suffered damages as a result of the infringing,” according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Tyler, Texas. Maz seeks an injunction against Microsoft and unspecified damages.
It is a Texan court, as usual. That’s where all the patent trolls go. This suit goes on top of a pile that includes the recently-disclosed lawsuit over the competition- and Web-hostile Silverlight (mentioned previously in [1, 2]).
GNU/Linux and Software Patents
Mark Radcliffe finally explains the Red Hat settlement, which is important because he is a top gun for the OSI. This settlement was previously discussed in [1, 2, 3, 4].
Some months ago, Torvalds expressed his concern about patents and he is doing it again in this fragment from a new interview.
RM ‘Do you think software patents are a good idea?’
LT [Linus Torvalds]: ‘Heh - definitely not. They’re a disaster. The whole point (and the original idea) behind patents in the US legal sense was to encourage innovation. If you actually look at the state of patents in the US today, they do no such thing. Certainly not in software, and very arguably not in many other areas either.
Quite the reverse - patents are very much used to stop competition, which is undeniably the most powerful way to encourage innovation. Anybody who argues for patents is basically arguing against open markets and competition, but they never put it in those terms.
So the very original basis for the patents is certainly not being fulfilled today, which should already tell you something. And that’s probably true in pretty much any area.
But the reason patents are especially bad for software is that software isn’t some single invention where you can point to a single new idea. Not at all. All relevant software is a hugely complex set of very detailed rules, and there are millions of small and mostly trivial ideas rather than some single clever idea that can be patented. The worth of the software is not in any of those single small decisions, but in the whole. It’s also distressing to see that people patent ‘ideas’. It’s not even a working “thing”; it’s just a small way of doing things that you try to patent, just to have a weapon in an economic fight. Sad. Patents have lost all redeeming value, if they ever had any. ‘
By the way, be cautious when it comes to Linus forgers. There are people out there on the Web pretending to be him and I received an E-mail from Linus a few days ago confirming that his identity is being stolen. The legitimacy of comments in particular must always be questioned. Linus hardly ever comments in blogs.
Patent Riot in the Making?
Peer-to-Patent was mentioned here a couple of days ago and the day before that. It has just received some recognition from the USPTO, which published the press release that’s appended at the bottom. Also, mind this bit about the Wall Street Journal pushing for a patent reform for years. [via Digital Majority]
Ironically, and humorously, the post is in the department titled we-could-have-told-you-and-did dept.. One of the many issues in patent reform has arisen from the unwillingness of some in the IT area to write down what they have done, and, more importantly, to read what others have written down. The kdawson post seriously neglects the PAST positions of the WSJ on patent reform, and thus becomes another piece of evidence of the unwillingness of some in the IT community to understand what has already happened.
The Fight Against RAND
IP-Watch has a couple of new articles that discuss the issue of RAND (in standards in particular) and how it is — ironically enough given its name — used to discriminate against competitors. Here is the first article.
The inclusion of intellectual property rights in standards also is creating an anti-competitive effect, said panellists at the 30 June seminar in Geneva, hosted by the South Centre.
Recall the BSA’s role in lobbying. The BSA is funded by Microsoft. Along with IDC, ACT and other servants of Microsoft, they pretend to be assisting small businesses (the ‘little guy’) rather than the monopolies.
The Commission promised to consider how the EU patent fee structure could be designed for easier access by small and mid-sized firms, and to try to provide IPR support services for small companies in their countries.
Nothing in intellectual monopolies can support “small and mid-sized firms.” Their goal should be the elimination of such a system. For details on how patents affect the small ‘inventor’, patiently watch this good talk from Richard Stallman. The story about the ’small guy’ in need of ‘protection’ is little more than just a fairly tail that’s used to protect a pyramid scheme of human knowledge. █
USPTO Extends and Expands Peer Review Pilot
Initiative to test impact of public input on improving patent quality opens to automated business
data processing technologies (business methods)
Washington, D.C. – The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today announced it will extend the duration, increase the maximum number of applications, and expand the scope of applications eligible to participate in the Peer Review Pilot. The pilot, launched in June 2007, encourages the public to review volunteered published patent applications and submit technical references and comments on what they believe to be the best prior art to consider during the examination. The expansion and extension of the pilot is effective today.
The pilot was initially restricted to patent applications in the computer-related arts (those classified in Technology Center 2100). The scope of the program is now expanded to include applications in the automated business data processing technologies, or business methods, class 705. Technical experts in the computer and business methods-related arts registering with the peertopatent.org Web site will review and submit information for up to 400 published patent applications, up from 250 as originally announced. No more than 25 separate applications will be allowed from any one person or organization, up from 15 in the original announcement.
“The USPTO continues to support the Peer Review Pilot to help it fulfill its promise as a way to help get the best prior art expeditiously before the examiner,” noted Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO Jon Dudas. “Extending and expanding the pilot to include business method patent applications will add more participants to the pilot and help us and the public better assess the effectiveness of Peer Review.”
The pilot is being conducted in cooperation with the Peer-to-Patent Project, organized by the New York Law School’s Institute for Information Law and Policy. The pilot is extended for an additional 12 months and will end on June 15, 2009.
To date, companies participating in the Peer Review Pilot have included IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems, Intel, GE, Red Hat, Cisco, Yahoo!, and others. With the expansion of the pilot, Goldman Sachs has volunteered to join as a participant.
“We support the Peer Review Pilot and commend the USPTO’s decision to expand the program to include financial sector innovation, which has been one of the most difficult areas to locate relevant prior art.” remarked John Squires, chief intellectual property counsel at Goldman Sachs. “Expansion of the pilot into class 705 will allow the Office to access considerable industry expertise and holds promise for improving patent quality and the shortening of long pendency times.”
Existing law allows the USPTO to accept prior art from the public, but it doesn’t allow the public to submit any commentary related to the art without the approval of the applicant. Thus, consent will be obtained from all applicants whose applications are volunteered and selected for the pilot. Applicants agree to have their patent applications posted for up to four months (but no less than three months) on the www.peertopatent.org Web site. Expert volunteers from the public then discuss the applications and submit prior art they think might be relevant to determining if an invention is new and non-obvious. The prior art submission is limited to 10 references.
So far, the pilot’s first 31 applications have been examined. More than half of the examiners who examined an application in the Peer Review Pilot so far thought the prior art submitted by the peers was helpful during examination. More than one-third of the examiners used peer-supplied prior art in the first action on the merits. Nearly 75 percent of the participating examiners said they believed the program would be useful if it were incorporated into regular Office practice.
For this pilot, applications are assigned to an examiner for examination as soon as a submission is received from the peertopatent.org Web site. This shortens considerably the time it normally takes from filing an application to a first action on the merits in the areas where the pilot is occurring.
For further information on the program and to review the Official Gazette notice, visit http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/peerpriorartpilot/.
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07.08.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Ubuntu, Interview at 4:49 am by Roy Schestowitz
Good to see a man’s mind does not soften
Enveloped in the third page of an interview that we cited yesterday was this:
What’s your sense of the Novell-Microsoft deal? Is it a net negative for Linux, or is there anything positive in it?
[Mark Shuttleworth: ] I think it’s positive in that it suggests that Microsoft is increasingly conscious of the need to engage with Linux. I think the terms under which they concluded that specific deal are negative for Linux as a whole, in that they tried to lock down, to entrench, a certain view of the economics of Free software. If you look at the deal, it very much assumes that software is being sold, so it tries to impose the economics of the ‘80s on the 21st century, and I don’t think that’s going to fly.
It’s a little bit like DRM, which tries to impose the economics of vinyl on a digital music industry. I think a lot of people are now saying, ‘Gosh, it’s not actually the music industry that’s suffering, it’s the record industry that’s suffering’ – the music industry is thriving.
And similarly, I think, any attempt to slow down the pace of innovation in the economics, as much as in the technology, is doomed to fail. And at heart I think that’s what’s wrong with the deal that was struck there.
It was very interesting to see, after the announcement of the deal, how much disagreement there was between the parties as to what the deal actually meant. And I think that’s a clear sign that it was something that was hastily concluded.
Anyhow, we don’t begrudge anybody their partnerships, we’re just very clear about the specific values that we hold dear. And we would not conclude a deal with Microsoft on the same terms – we don’t think that would be constructive for our users or for Free software as a whole.
This is not the first time that Mark criticises the Novell/Microsoft deal [1, 2]. In previous interviews he even called it “racketeering”. █
“It is in Novell’s interest - selfish interest, I will admit - to advance-remove whatever those inhibitors be to the advancement of Linux and open source.”
–John Dragoon, Novell
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07.05.08
Posted in Law, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Videos, Interview, Linspire at 5:27 am by Roy Schestowitz
Watch this new interview with Kevin Carmony. We previously wrote about the end of Linspire in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and a cash inflow that he seems to be speaking of begs for some more questions about Microsoft and that mysterious deal. Maybe it’s not related to this. Being a private company, Linspire did not have to say much at the time. Groklaw raised concerns because of this. █
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07.02.08
Posted in Red Hat, Microsoft, Windows, SLES/SLED, Servers, Patents, Interoperability, Virtualization, FOSS, Interview at 2:13 pm by Roy Schestowitz
Last week we explained what Microsoft had done with Hyper-V. It’s using such products to promote the Microsoft-taxed SLES at the expense of companies that refuse to pay for mythical software patents. Here is Microsoft’s attempt to sneak out of it when questioned about this.
As for Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, it allows customers to consolidate applications running Novell SLES 10. As for Red Hat, Microsoft and Red Hat both realize the importance of virtualization and interoperability needs of our joint customers, and we are actively discussing how to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V.
It’s important to emphasise that Microsoft put a patent barrier inside Hyper-V, probably in order to prevent interoperability with Free software. █
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Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, Interview, xandros, Linspire at 2:07 pm by Roy Schestowitz
O
ne of the more intriguing developments at the moment is the joining of Linspire and Xandros [1, 2, 3]. The CEO of Xandros rarely speak to the press and it’s virtually impossible to find information about him on the Web. Regardless, one of the reasons Xandros is still mentioned every now and then is the ASUS Eee PC. The following new article about the acquisition mentioned that too.
A customized version of the Xandros distro is bundled with the popular Asus EeePC.
Several months ago, Florian von Kurnatowski from Xandros (he had worked at Scalix, which was acquired by Xandros as well) said in reference to the Eee PC that there was “no impact or royalties to Redmond in this case, most of it open source, the stuff that’s not ours and Asus’ own development, and given the numbers this little thingy leaves the building in, actually one of the most successful end-user products based on open technology, ever.”
Mind the following interesting new bit from the CEO of Xandros:
When I asked Typaldos whether Xandros is licensing its Linux OS to Asus for the EeePC and how Xandros makes its money from the 1-1.5 million netbooks he referred to, he responded by saying it’s ‘complicated.’
What does that mean? He doesn’t say, but it sure seems like another secret arrangement from a company that repackages and charges for Free software. As we wrote earlier, negations with Linspire began as far back as last year. It was a back-room negotiation as Kevin Carmony bitterly put it.
It wasn’t long ago that a rumour came about ASUS considering work with Debian, on which Xandros is based. They could go right to the source. SJVN adds some historical background in his follow-up coverage of this.
[I]t’s safe to say that no one saw Xandros, the oldest of the desktop Linux companies thanks to its Corel Linux ancestry, buying Linspire, the desktop Linux perhaps best known for being the first Linux to openly embrace proprietary software. So how did this deal happen? Why did it happen? Here’s what Xandros CEO Andreas Typaldos had to say about the surprising deal.
So, to Typaldos it was a great match up of where Xandros was and where Linspire had been trying to go. “Products like the ASUS Eee PC have demonstrated the huge potential market for Linux-based OEM netbook solutions and other emerging mobile Linux platforms. The Linspire CNR technologies provide the fourth “E” as in ‘easy to maintain.’ including on-demand delivery of a growing number of Linux utilities and games.”
To shed some light on the irrelevance of Xandros and Linspire compared to something like Ubuntu, see the image below (click for a full-sized version). Distro Watch tells a similar story.
Here is why Novell is by the far the biggest fish in this Microsoft racketeering pond.
In the future, it is going to be simpler to track Linspire and Xandros under their joint Xandros umbrella. Their destiny — however fortune or misfortunate — will be shared too. █
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05.30.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED, FUD, Debian, GPL, Asia, Interview at 2:16 pm by Roy Schestowitz
“It’s nice for you to admit your guys are running scared [of Free software]. They should be.”
–The sum of Microsoft’s fears (yesterday)
Remember Susan Hauser, who ’stole’ the voices of customers and tried to ‘override’ their views? We will never forget this fear mongering technique. She did not impress much in the audiocast from last October and neither did Justin Steinman and the other Novell/Microsoft salespersons. To a great degree, these marketing folks are responsible for Novell’s troubles.
“Microsoft needs trusted open source Web sited (not Redmond’s Fort 25) to offer them room to speak out.”OStatic is an “open source” site, but there has always been something funny about it (not just posts advocating Windows and Mac software). Other than the fact that they publicly dismissed our views on Mono, it’s part of the same network that at leas once in the past AstroTurfed for Microsoft (and got caught). It also employs OpenSUSE’s community manager, who receives a salary from Novell.
At the moment, there are more reasons for cautiousness. OStatic has just interviewed 4 people from Microsoft, which as regular readers would know, is just trying to hijack and ruin “Open Source”. In order to achieve this, Microsoft needs trusted open source Web sited (not Redmond’s Fort 25) to offer them room to speak out. It’s the path to people’s minds — especially people on the ‘other side of the fence’ (never preach to the cenverted).
Anyway, let’s interpret Susan Hauser’s response to OStatic. It’s heavily filled with toxic words.
OStatic: What goals do you have for Microsoft’s interoperability alliance with Novell, and what’s behind the goal of converting Linux users in the Chinese market to SUSE Linux Enterprise?
Susan Hauser, General Manager of Strategic Partnerships and Licensing at Microsoft:
“We entered into this agreement because based on customer feedback, we believed that there was an opportunity to grow our business by working together and to show leadership in the industry and the community in the following ways.”
Translation: We arranged a protection racket with Novell, paid it loads of money and then pretended that customers had certain requirements in order to justify our dirty little transaction.
[Note: Matt Asay and others have already confirmed that customers required none of the above (e.g. bogus ‘protection’). The only one perpetuating and spreading this lie is Susan Hauser, who stole the voice of customers (c/f reference at the top) to tell lies ‘on their behalf’, and behind their backs too.]
“Customers want their vendors to embrace interoperability. Microsoft and Novell collaborated – and continue to collaborate – on technical solutions for their shared customers to address critical interoperability technologies such as virtualization and web services. The sales of SUSE Linux support certificates and feedback we’ve received from those customers affirms that choice.”
Translation: Customers needed Microsoft to finally get its act together and stop the technical sabotage, or at least total its disregard for open standards. However, by liaising with Novell, we at Microsoft realised that we can carry on maintaining our proprietary protocols and then build secret binary bridges that only those who pay us ‘protection money’ will receive access to. The patent royalties we’re receive from customer affirm the fact that we got them screwed big time. They pay Microsoft for GNU/Linux.
“Customers want their vendors to manage IP issues for them. Both companies recognize that Microsoft and Novell intellectual property is relevant to their respective products and will be increasingly relevant over time. This agreement has provided customers with confidence these issues have been addressed. We have provided customers with IP Peace of mind. In addition, by having reciprocal respect for IP, we are able to collaborate technically and deliver technical collaboration solutions that benefit our customers.”
Translation: Customers don’t care about interoperability. They just want to cover imaginary debt for imaginary things. Both companies realise that they can build a collective and mutual intellectual monopoly and, as time goes by, they can maginalise competition because antitrust regulators look the other way. The agreement showed that we can sleep better at night, knowing that a corrupted system will permit this to happen. We provided foolish customers with a piece of paper which they never asked for and had them brainwashed to the point of believing that this paperwork was needed. Of course, without pieces of papers, bits of binary code magically cease to work. Programming is impossible without paper (no, not punch cards).
“Microsoft wants to continue reaching out to the open source community. Microsoft has begun participation in some important OSS projects and the non-compensated OSS community is being encouraged to experiment and grow through a broad covenant not-to-sue that benefits individual developers.”
Translation: To quote my boss Steve Ballmer, we need to “f**cking kill Linux.” In order to do so, we try to infiltrate FOSS project and convince them that they have a debt to Microsoft and that they need to pay up in order to ensure Microsoft does not take them and their customers to court. Additionally, they need to ditch that “cancer” called Linux and port their programs to Windows as soon as possible, using “open source” programs solutions like Visual Studio.
“There is a growing recognition among customers – in many countries including China - that there are significant costs to the business by running an operating system that is not supported by a commercial vendor. These costs include the staff time to do manual patches and bug fixes versus leveraging the seamless updates that are provided by Novell for SUSE Linux Enterprise as part of a support contract.”
Translation: China respects intellectual monopolies and ownership of mathematics. Additionally, no GNU/Linux distribution other than Novell ever receives patches. Users have to write their own. They have to keep track of Bugzilla and watchever and figure out how to fix every individual flaw. It’s really, really hard.
“In addition, companies are realizing that with limited budgets, it makes much more sense to use valuable IT staff on strategic projects that support the overall business than on manual tasks that are easily automated when a support contract is purchased.”
Translation: Novell is cheaper than something like Debian. And let’s not forget that if you don’t pay for your copy of GNU/Linux, then automation becomes impossible.
This hopefully sums up the spin doctoring which can be seen above. Microsoft is very good at something — it’s the mastery of FUD tactics and intimidation. It’s just a dirty old routine.
In other OStatic ‘news’, you can clearly see this pattern of FUD (or non-deliberate disinformation), which was once accidentally echoed also in the 451 Group’s blog. The GPL has already won; maybe not in the US (never been tested there to the end), but planet Earth is not the same thing as the United States of America. Why oh why are people still trying to suggest that the GPL is weak, invalid or untested? █
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05.21.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Novell, SLES/SLED, Steve Ballmer, Patents, Interview at 4:44 am by Roy Schestowitz
“[…] we [Microsoft and Novell] agreed on […] essentially an arrangement under which they pay us some money for the right to tell the customer that anybody who uses Suse Linux is appropriately covered […] They’ve appropriately compensated Microsoft for our intellectual property, which is important to us. In a sense you could say anybody who has got Linux in their data center today sort of has an undisclosed balance sheet liability, because it’s not just Microsoft patents.”
–Steve Ballmer
It was earlier today that we wrote about the need to keep an eye open and not be distracted by labels like “Microsoft hater”. Stormy Peters has shared the following thoughts about the Novell/Microsoft deal, including some of its impacts. She responded to yet another bundle of bad labels such as “purists” and “fanatics”, which just come to show you how Microsoft et al incite and poison the public against critics and opposers (Microsoft Mouthpiece Rob Enderle going as far as comparisons to 9/11 terrorists while others join in).
twessels: Novell claims their November 2, 2006, agreement with Microsoft has helped push forward adoption of SUSE Linux Enterprise Server in major commercial customer accounts. And having just attended Novell’s BrainShare I can see that the technical cooperation between Novell and Microsoft is starting to bear fruit. Was the knee-jerk reaction of the purists and fanatics worth all of the rhetoric that ensued? And if not, why has Red Hat refused to even consider such an agreement with Microsoft? It seems that they lost out on having a powerhouse marketing partner, like Microsoft, driving business their way.
Stormy_Peters: “Was the knee-jerk reaction of the purists and fanatics worth all of the rhetoric that ensued?” Absolutely. The open source community needs the purists and fanatics to keep us straight. That said, the world is not black and white and business is not always evil. Also, businesses are using combinations of open source and proprietary software in very effective ways. So if the Microsoft agreement brings more customers to Linux, good. If some open source developers protest the patent agreement, good too. (Now hopefully nobody quotes just one part of this answer!)
ITgirl: So, is it safe to say that the whole Microsoft threats thing has turned into nothing … do you think enterprises are at all concerned about that anymore? Do you think that Microsoft might still really take legal action against any Linux or open-source companies?
Stormy_Peters: First off, I’m not an attorney and I can’t say whether the threat is real or imagined. However, I think Microsoft is adopting the open source software model more and more. I’ve definitely been hearing less concern around the whole Novell/Microsoft agreement. I think the patent and open source issue is still a very real concern. It’s very hard for open source software developers to know if they’ve violated someone’s patent (out of the tens of thousands out there) and very easy for someone to see if an open source software developer has violated their particular patent.
In a land of disinformation, defeating the Microsoft/Novell-imposed characterisation of the news can be hard, but at least we can try. It gets harder in the face of smear campaigns. █
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05.15.08
Posted in Microsoft, GNU/Linux, Patents, GPL, SUN, Oracle, FOSS, Interview, Database at 8:36 am by Roy Schestowitz
Increasingly, as MySQL grows mightier, it is likely to find itself under greater pressure. Part of this pressure is not a competitive one as much as it is pressure which revolves around loyalty. Balancing customer trust against the need for revenue can be hard sometimes. Loyalty to shareholders often antagonizes market requirements, too.
Another vector of risk is the relentless attempt to write and exploit new laws that essentially contradict the GNU Public License (GPL) and therefore sideline or exclude free software, of which MySQL is one. The bigger and more disruptive MySQL becomes, the more attractive a scapegoat it will be. To say this more explicitly, as MySQL attracts more customers at the expense of its counterparts, software patent trolls and vocal critics will more likely paint it their target.
From a public relations and legal perspective, it’s typically easier when you are an underdog because you receive sympathy. But MySQL is growing up, so let’s take a look at some new barriers it will probably face, or is already facing.
Another Storm in a Teacup
In order to better understand the sensitivity of the issue at hand, it’s worth recognizing the importance of MySQL. To many IT professionals, MySQL is a vital ingredient in their stack. It is the engine that organizes and stores personal data. This trend is here to stay, particularly because Web-based applications continue to gain traction. Just as people wish to control their data and escape lock-in, they also wish to have a sense of control over their database, i.e. the software which lies beneath processing, interpreting and delivering this data to other layers of the stack. MySQL offers peace of mind to many.
How quickly things can change though. Inaccurate news broke loose in Slashdot a few weeks ago, insinuating that MySQL was gradually going closed-source. The almost-immediate backlash, which was further fueled and exacerbated by a few sensationalist articles, played a partial role in convincing MySQL to keep the core of the program purely GPL-licensed, essentially backtracking on a decision that had previously been made. Above all, MySQL wanted to keep its users happy. It needed to cope with new types of pressure.
This rather fundamental strategic change was nothing new. Contrary to common belief, MySQL’s revised strategy had been adopted before Sun Microsystems even entered the picture and the company still intends to make some peripheral components (addons) of MySQL proprietary. It’s seen as controversial by those who argue that MySQL’s business potential could equally well be exploited using support and customization services, not sales of proprietary software. Interestingly enough, MySQL did not start off as free software. The same goes for the Linux kernel, which elected the GPL only in 1992.
This latest storm surrounding MySQL has died out by now, but it led me to some amicable conversations with Mårten Mickos, the CEO of MySQL, who is also a Database Senior Vice President at Sun Microsystems following the 1-billion dollar acquisition of his company. Selective responses from him are quoted later on, but I continue to reflect on MySQL’s likely direction with the open confession that I have bias in favor of the GPL’s merits and awareness of existing external threats to it.
MySQL’s Business Model Dilemma
MySQL is unique in the sense that it has become an almost de facto database for GNU/Linux-powered servers (and to an extent Apache also). This gives it an enormous, yet hidden, presence in the World Wide Web. It thrives in a huge userbase and can boast over 100 million downloads of the software so far.
“More recent attempts to change the business model saw a shift from introducing inconveniences to actual restriction imposed on access…”MySQL’s monetization of this success — as measured in terms of popularity or ubiquity — is another story due to its relatively low ‘conversion rate’, i.e. the number of users who turn into paying customers. The ratio recently stood at about 1000:1, which means that only one in a thousand users also becomes a paying customer.
Over the past couple of years, MySQL has earned itself some new critics for subtle changes to its business model. The latest incident, which was mentioned above, is no exception. Examples of controversial moves involve the availability of latest versions of the software and the state of the software which made is available (e.g. pre-compiled program versus source code). There was also a colossal case of misunderstanding last year when discrimination against Debian was wrongly claimed. Unfortunately, such misconceptions and errors live on.
More recent attempts to change the business model saw a shift from introducing inconveniences to actual restriction imposed on access, with the exception of paying customers who receive binaries. In essence, they must handle executable files without accompanying source code, which sometimes translates into lock-in and helplessness, feature- and security-wise. But it didn’t take. MySQL changed its mind. Sort of.
It’s important to remember that when MySQL announced its strategic reversal a week ago, at least as far as the core product is concerned, not much was changed as far as the business model goes. Only its scope was altered and impact thus limited.
To the company’s credit, it did listen. It did take feedback about MySQL into account after the backlash. By all means, it is preferable to inquire about controversial things — keeping users in the loop so to speak — as opposed to making quiet or surprise announcements. The GPL is all about giving users real control, as well as a sense of control over direction of development and whatever they do on their personal computers or servers. Distribution of binaries, for example, does not permit this.
Free software is still scarcely explored in the business sense, but many choose to think of it mainly as a question of control (open source), not just freedom. These two strengths are separate, but not mutually exclusive. One problem that remains with the aforementioned approach, namely the making peripheral components proprietary, is that it turns products as a whole into the equivalent of trial version of software where users get trapped in, then charged premium rates for non-free extensions which they cannot study, modify, or redistribute.
The situation above highlights yet another limiting factor, which can be used as an argument filled with substance against free software — especially software which goes down this particular route at the end. With dual-licensing, the software loses its distinguisher, its added value. For opponents of free software it serves as a fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) argument which may be stronger than “free software relies on support services, so it’s made shoddy for revenue.”
It’s possible to think of all sorts of ways to monetize use with minimal disruption and obtrusion. Some companies already do this with great success. I approached Richard Stallman for his opinion on this and he insisted that it is not just a question of profit. “I don’t think much about the question of what is more profitable, because I am constantly urging people to think about what is ethical and what is not,” he said.
Software Patents
Software patents are an odd duck because they are valid only in a few countries and their economic merits are repeatedly doubted. They typically serve an affluent minority. A controversial issue that came up back in February was the disappearance of MySQL’s rebellious policy on software patents. The acquisition by Sun had an effect on it.
Scott Mace started a big discussion at the time about Sun’s view on software patents and what it all means to MySQL. Sun weighed in, but nonetheless, a fairly brave Web page that protests against software patents did not return after it had been taken down. It has only been amended since then, in order to reflect on convergence or symbiosis of policies. Not everyone was pleased.
“What will prevent MySQL from getting not only further restricted — feature-wise — but also sensitive to software patent baggage?”It’s clear that large companies like Sun can benefit a lot from their patent portfolios. In contrast, how many software patents does MySQL have? MySQL inside Sun can make it an attractive target for patent trolls. Sun has plenty of money and free software projects living under the umbrella of large companies translate into less ‘community backlash’. Think about circumstances where they come under attack that’s akin to that from Trend Micro, as opposed to NetApp, which attacked the titan called Sun. What will prevent MySQL from getting not only further restricted — feature-wise — but also sensitive to software patent baggage? What prevents a company with software patents on database technology from finding ‘artistic’ ways to extract money from MySQL users, e.g. via Web hosts, directly from Sun, or even by approaching customers (especially large companies) and making secret deals, just as Microsoft did?
I approached Mårten Mickos for a comment and his take on this was as follows: “As long as we have software patents legally in our market, the owners of such patents may try to make money on them in FOSS environments, and some will succeed.
“Fortunately there are companies with patents that don’t use them in this way. I am not an expert on Sun’s practice in this regard, but my impression is that Sun hasn’t used it patents for revenue extraction from users or producers of free software,” he concluded.
To be fair, Sun seems to have used its patents only defensively in recent years (examples include NetApp and Kodak). The company’s CEO even offered to defend Linux using Sun’s patents. However, to an extent, it seems like a case of fighting fire with fire while at the same time trying to extinguish the fire by opposing expansion of software patent laws into Europe.
It’s very doubtful that larger companies like Sun will be willing to just throw away their portfolios and annul their software patents altogether, especially after heavy investments that brought competitive advantage. Simon Phipps insists that there is an obligation to shareholders, but by hogging they become not the solution and therefore part of the problem. This may also lead to a separate public relations problem.
As people from FFII might say, based on their extensive experience, a company’s defensive patent becomes offensive when the company gets weaker and therefore feels cornered. The solution lies in invalidation of software patents. To use an analogy, letting more nations have nuclear weapons to neutralize attacks or to counter-attack does not make the world safer. Disarmament does. At the end of the day, large companies that benefit from the existing (and very controversial) system can typically just offer crocodile tears whenever this issue gets raised.
Fighting at All Costs, for Cost
Adoption of free software is still hindered by several key factors. A previous article highlighted problems that tend to escape many people’s attention. A continuous change of laws, for example, can be used to harm free software’s legality or at least put some clouds over its head.
It has unfortunately become a political question. Look not for scientists’ opinions but look mainly at shareholders, lobbyists, lawyers, and lawmakers. It is usually them who call the shots nowadays. Government opposition to an anticipated patent reform, followed by another discouraging outlook further confirmed this very recently. Then again, some say this entire reform was pointless from the very start. It strives to eliminate elements that large companies do not like while keeping in tact the rest which brings benefit to them and ensures monopolization prevails.
The GPL version 3 (GPLv3) was intended to address a few of the problems that are associated with software patents. GPLv4 has already been mentioned by Richard Stallman, who foresees further potential threats to the four essential freedoms that protect and sustain the freedom of software. Free software ought never to turn into something which is neither Free (libre) nor free (gratis). Software patents laws are a great risk to this.
At the moment, MySQL’s CEO does not rule out GPLv3 as a future option and at least a consideration, provided the market matures and adopts this licence too. “We think GPL 3 is great (better than GPL2), and we will move to it when we believe that it is also well accepted among users and customers. Wide acceptance was the reasoning we used for moving to GPL 2 and that’s the reasoning we’ll use for version 3,” says Mårten Mickos. Sun has already made one component of xVM GPLv3-licensed (Ops Center virtualisation to be specific), so it’s apparent that Sun hasn’t any idealogical or fundamental resistance to it.
In summary, MySQL is likely to face issues that are associated with ways of extracting revenue from its users. Another largely forgotten issue is the increased pressure from the outside to extract revenue for collisions involving ideas, especially ones pertaining to algorithms. MySQL ought to ensure that it can keep free software as free as it has always been, but these challenges may not be trivial to address. █
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