Evolution Bounty Stirs GPL Concerns 214
Moochman writes "The recent Desktop Integration Bounty (funded by Novell) will surely please people who want Evolution to be part of GNOME. But the Ximian Evolution copyright assignment has stirred up concerns in the community about whether contributors will be able to maintain their Free Software mores. Essentially, contributors to Evolution must give Novell copyright over any code they submit; then Novell is allowed to include this code in a proprietary product. Is this a smart business move, or a violation of the GPL?" Since all contributions are only at the request of the contributing coder, and considering that the copyright assignment form says that "Ximian agrees to grant back to Developer, and does hereby grant, nonexclusive, royaltyfree and noncancelable rights to use the Works," and specifies that Novell/Ximian release the code under a license compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (such as the GPL), it seems to protect the contributors rather well.
So..? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this any different? Because they are also going to sell a proprietary version? The developers will sign the rights over to Ximian, so how is this any different from dual-licensing like MySQLs? I mean, Ximian will own the code..
As a regular user of Evolution (Score:2, Insightful)
I think myself, like the majority of people that use software could give a flying fsck about the license some software is using.
Gnu / BSD / X11 / Sell Grandmother into slavery - I don't care.
Evolution is a perfectly acceptable replacement for Outlook, so long as it continues being like that i'll use it. If some better software comes along that runs on my PC i'll switch.
The FSF asks people to sign over copyright also (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing to see here, move along.
Re:So..? (Score:4, Insightful)
A developer who writes code and releases it under the GPL and only under the GPL and wants it to remain that way would not be likely to assign the copyright to Novell.
If it were me, I would grant *them* a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to use the code under the GPL. Maybe I would even grant them that license to use it in a proprietary program as well, as long as it was in the GPLed one too.
But sign over my copyright and then have *them* give *me* a perpetual royalty-free license to use my own code? Umm, I don't think so. Not unless I work for Novell developing Evolution code, in which case they already own it and don't have to give me any license at all.
Re:So..? (Score:4, Insightful)
Slashdot food? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just leave it already. Seems that this passes pretty unseen amongst outsiders anyway.
GPL concerns? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that so long as the code remains free, I have no problem with an organization being enabled to use the code in their own commercial product. I think it would be ridiculous for them not to be able to gain benefit from the activity they sponsor.
I guess what they are trying to do is say "okay, anything you give is ours first and then we give it back... but we want to be able to use it in proprietary code but you still get to keep the code too..."
It is OK. (Score:1, Insightful)
If I write software and license it, I can license it to many partys under different terms.
I can GPL it AND license it to Novell. Why not?
Of course, if my work is a derivative of work owned by someone else, that's a different situation.
However, this particular situataion isn't derivative work.
Heck, many products that are later GPL'd fall under the "multiple licensees, multiple licenses" situation. This is no different.
MySQL Dual Licensing (Score:5, Insightful)
That's slightly different (Score:5, Insightful)
This Evolution thing meanwhile you're being required to hand over the copyright so that Novell can turn around and sell it in a proprietary product. This is slightly different. Rather than being asked to hand over the copyright for the good of the community and users, you're being asked to hand over the copyright for the good of Novell.
This is actually exactly like MySQL and a lot of people do hesitate before contributing code to MySQL for exactly this same reason.
Re:As a regular user of Evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Among Linux users (and BSD users as well, although Linux users tend to be more "excitable" on this point), however, there are a great many people who care a great deal about the license. I sometimes used proprietary software if there is no acceptable alternative under a free license, but like a lot of people who use Linux, I will often choose a GPled (or other free-licensed) product over a proprietary one even if the proprietary one is better. The Free one just has to be "good enough" and under active development so that it is improving. Put another way, many of us will accept software that is far rougher and in a developmental stage as long as it is FOSS. If it's proprietary, we're going to demand more. Partly because of licensing and partly because if I'm paying for it, I should be able to reasonably expect that I am not paying to be a beta tester. Some of my gripe with proprietary software is that I have often found that no matter what the marketing spin says, it's so rough that in fact I *have* just paid to be a beta tester. When I want to beta stuff, I will volunteer. I certainly won't pay for the "privilege."
So yes, actually, many people do indeed give a flying fsck about the license on the software they use.
Makes sense... (Score:2, Insightful)
Whoever want pure GPL can fork Evolution....
I think it's a good thing (Score:2, Insightful)
As far as the licences goes, does it matter? I mean if i wrote something got $1000 for it and decided it was worth selling my code, I'd have no problem with it. It seems that there are people out there who would like you to have a choice on what to do with the code as long as you let everyone see and use your code as they please. Not a lot of choice there, right? In my opinion it all comes down to the developer, if he wants to do something let him. As far as I'm concerned those devs got paid for by Novell for whatever they did, so at least Novell should be able to use some of that code elswhere also.
Let's say Novell comes out with Evolution and Evolution PRO. Regular version is Open Source, the Pro version is $100. If I as a dev submited some code that found it's way in both versions I'd have no problem with it since there is a free version that uses my code anyways. If i submited a code that found it's way only in Pro then I'd have a problem with it. Basically what I'm getting at is that the $100 Novell charges you for pro is probably not due to my code, but some other code that Novell developed not under GPL but under some propiatery license or something.
Re:BSD license (Score:3, Insightful)
As it stands now, only Novell can do what they want with the code, as they get the copyright, and everybody outside of Novell 'just' gets the GPLed version and can't thus reuse the code in a proprietary product as Novell can.
Letter and Spirit of the GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
What Novell is asking people to do is to sign over the copyright to their code so that they can produce both proprietary and GPL software based on that code.
Well, what happens when all the nice bells and whistles are only added to the proprietary version of evolution? This version becomes much more appealing. As a result, there is a demand for it and users begin to leave the GPL version in drones.
In the end, the bulk of the app's code is only released to lower maintenance costs, while the nice bells are proprietary and you can no longer share the software freely. In philosophical terms, Novell's decision is purely utalitarian, rather than based on the conviction that Free Sofware is the morally correct choice.
In essence, Novell's request for copyright respects the letter but violates the spirit of the GPL.
By signing your copyright over to Novell, you are saying that you do not care all that much about creating communities that share free software, because you are implicitly allowing your code to be contributed to a non-free application. The only way I would sign my code over is if Novell agrees to distribute ALL OF evolution under the GPL at PERPETUITY.
No Link Between GPL and Innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
In this particular case, the open source community is using a widely loathed proprietary program -- Outlook -- as both model and yardstick for one of it's premier offerings, Evolution. Ditto OpenOffice.
If the GPL does foster the creation of new and innovative applications, why has the community not already brought forth an email client and an office client that are so convincingly innovative, useful and attractive that people will happily abandon the Outlook/MSOffice paradigms in order to adopt them?
Granted, source availability does spread innovative ideas once they occur in the mind of a given developer. But, it seems clear that a developer working in a closed, proprietary environment can be just as innovative as one working in an free and open environment. Financial reward can, in fact, be a wonderful spur to creativity.
It could be argued, as well, that the availability of code works against innovation because developers often use existing code as a model rather than strike out into new territory.
The GPL and open source represent many good things, but they are no better or no worse at fostering creativity than the proprietary model.
Re:Letter and Spirit of the GPL (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, because everyone chooses to use StarOffice over OpenOffice and Crossover over Wine.
... pratt.
Then it shouldn't be part of Gnome (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not a violation of the GPL.
But this is a reason to not make Evolution an integral part of Gnome.
There is nothing wrong with Novell doing this, but please don't compare it to situations where developers are asked to assign their code to a foundation. The wxWidgets, Mozilla, Gnome, Apache, Python, etc. foundations have mandates to help their users and contributors. Novell is a corporation, and it is ultimately only responsible to its shareholders.
Novell with Evolution and Sun with OpenOffice - these are like TrollTech with Qt. Better than closed source, but not as good as software which is guided by the interests of its users and developers.
Well, lets see.. (Score:3, Insightful)
As soon as your code is accepted and put into CVS, you can check it back out, under the GPL. The GPL is non-revokeable. Now having GPL rights to the code is not exactly the same as having ownership of it. Legally it is very different. Pragmaticly, as soon as it is in the public CVS your goal of submitting code the public good has happened. If you are very paranoid, only give them small chunks at a time, making sure that you can checkout your work before you give them more.
What you have lost is the right to take that part of Evolution and close it, sell it as closed code. Now, since you dont own the rights to the other 99% of Evolution, not much lost. Furthermore, Evolution is a fairly large and complex beast so unless you are working on it full time, I think it is unlikely that you could possibly contribute anything that would be usefull outside of Evolution. That is, your doing bugfixes, implementing minor features.
But what if your work is generic stuff that could be used outside Evolution? Do this: write it up as a library. Release the library under whatever license you want - retaining the ownership, and the right to sell it as closed code - and then only give Novell patches to Evolution such that it takes advantage of your library.
Re:So..? (Score:2, Insightful)
Novell is paying for this code... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenOffice and Evolution are fighting in product segments where Microsoft has had a virtual stranglehold for the last 10 years. Compatibility with them is absolutely necessary to drive a wedge for more F/OSS into the corporate (and home) environment. Mozilla (and other 3rd party browsers) have a decided advantage in that the bulk of their incompatabilities with IE are due to standards non-compliance in IE and the apps that depend on IE are less than 5 Years Old. At some point in the future, OpenOffice and Evolution will have to add more features or die in the inovation game, but first they have to be "feature complete" with their competiors. IIRC, excel didn't take off until it had a good Lotus 1-2-3 compatibility layer and Word had to render WordPerfect documents well prior to acceptance.
Re:No Link Between GPL and Innovation (Score:3, Insightful)
It's a bit arrogant to argue that the only reason that the vast majority of users -- on any platform -- don't use eamcs or mutt is because they are attracted to eye candy. Most people, including myself, believe computers should make life easier. Software, therefore, is better when it offers more fnctionality combined with a flatter learning curve. That's where emacs, mutt and similar applications fall down: a lot of functionality combined with a very steep learning curve. Worse, once learned, that knowledge is essentially not transferrable elsewhere, which increases the demands on the user without providing an equivalent payoff.
Re:Follow The Money (Score:3, Insightful)
And how can I use my 'works' afterwards? (Score:2, Insightful)
In other words: Novell will be the only one able to use _your_ code in a program where they get to decide the license. You can use that code in a program of your own, but you can't provide your users with any rights not provided by the licenses used by Novell.
In other words: No way am I going to contribute to such a program!
Re:That's slightly different (Score:3, Insightful)
So make your own derivative distro from Fedora like Enterprise Edition. Red Hat won't stop you, and hasn't stopped a number of people that has done exactly that. Red Hat is probably the most Free-oriented major distro developer, aside from the Debian Project, of course.
Re:That's slightly different (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't -have- to contribute... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody is restricting anyone's rights, I think. You're under no obligation to give them code, and they're under no obligation to take your code. IF you enter into this agreement, and especially with large sums of cash involved, it's simply two parties entering into an agreement. If you write the best thing in the world for Evolution, and want to hold onto your copyright, nobody will stop you. (Fork the project if you want, etc etc...)
Yawn. (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on guys, this is OLD news. Ximian did this years ago, and nothing's changed except the name.
It hasn't been a real problem with any of the few contributions we've had to the codebase; i think maybe one or two guys got upset about it. It's been more of a hinderance to us, limiting what extenal projects we can utilise for some of the chunkier features. Bigger deterrants to potential contributors is the rapid development pace, limited documentation, the size of the codebase, and our anally retarded quality requirements for patches.
Some of the extensions people want to do aren't useful to the general community and would impact on the user experience for everyone else, or they had under-developed GUI interfaces which we couldn't include in the main product, or they were just poor code. In reality we're lucky if we've had 5% of the code from non-company contributors, and that is probably being generous. So much for Free Software. Often it's quicker and easier to write it ourselves than try to get someone's patch up to speed, unfortunately; but thats a non-technical and non-legal issue.
In 2.2 we'll have an extension mechanism that will let anyone write extensions and release them separate to the main codebase. This will entirely negate most of the issues here since the code will no longer have to be accepted into the main codebase to extend Evolution, and hence wont require assignment. We'll have something like the kernel tainting mechanism to enforce valid combinations (and also to let us know if it isn't our bug).
This practise is quite common (Score:1, Insightful)
While he does not prevent other people using the nmap code within the GPLs normal limits, he still makes sure he has copyright control so that he can do what he wants.
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