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Novell and Microsoft cut out the GPL cancer from open-source Silverlight
The implications of this aren't immediately clear, nor can we be certain of what Novell and the Mono development team have in store for us. All we know is that Novell has decided to lock Moonlight development up in a stricter, more-commercial LGPLv2 and MIT X11 license: generally it's a bad thing when free things become non-free.
This in itself might not be news, if it wasn't for Microsoft's recent 'Moonlight Covenant'. In it, Microsoft claims that end-users are safe from being sued should they overstep their ground -- sounds good, if their decree didn't have so many holes in. It is looking more and more like, after so much help from the community, Moonlight will be snatched back by Microsoft.
It is increasingly likely that Novell, in one last, desperate bid at freedom (hah) will screw Mono and Moonlight, pocket some cash from Microsoft, and make a runner. This is an example of the OSS movement gone wrong and I have a feeling that the community will fry Novell for it.
Comments
20
Subscribe to commentsAltairAntaresDec 24th 2009 4:48PM
You seem remarkably confident in the abilities of the open source folks to get angry, or at least get angry in a way that'll have any real significance...
inskyDec 24th 2009 6:00PM
I think the last portion of your sentence is where the real meat lies. FOSS freaks get angry about the littlest things, it's just that it doesn't really make much of a difference.
Sebastian AnthonyDec 24th 2009 6:09PM
Well... a good Slashdotting will show them who's boss! Yeah! ...
HarshDec 24th 2009 5:42PM
OMG you guys are so stupid! If you don't know anything open source software then keep your stupid noses out for god sake.
The LGPLv2 and MIT X11 licenses, like the BSD license are more permissive than the GPL license and thus more commercial friendly. This is not a bad thing or an example of Novell being Microsoft's bitch. All they did was re-license their platforms to a more permissive(less stricter!) license to ensure a more level playing field for OSS and proprietary developers a like.
Nokia recently did the same thing with QT when they bought Trolltech. This is good trend! It means Open Source friendly companies are becoming a little less paranoid and learning to let go a bit more.
You guys need to do a bit more research. Talk about embarrassing.
Sebastian AnthonyDec 24th 2009 6:08PM
Hm, permissive in what sense?
More commercial, yes, which is generally not a 'good thing' for open source developers that have spent time on a project.
Obviously it's a different matter if something STARTS with a BSD-style license, but changing it mid-way? A bit lame.
KritsDec 24th 2009 6:58PM
"More commercial"... Seriously are you remedial? Sigh, let me explain slowly...
There are generally two types of open source licenses, permissive and copyleft. There are some that are in between. MIT X11, BSD are permissive and GPL is copyleft. The LGPL license is somewhere in between.
Again if you don't completely understand what permissive OSS licenses mean then do some research. Are you a journalist or just a blogger?! All you really need to know is permissive == less stricter! Jeez.
Also, OSS projects change their license(s) all the time, especially when they realise its restricting innovation.
Sebastian AnthonyDec 24th 2009 7:01PM
Yes, I asked how is it more permissive, compared to copyleft licensing?
I'm not a lawyer, so obviously I don't get the intricacies, but I'm probably intelligent enough to learn, if you're willing to teach -- rather than preach (or whine, I'm not sure).
Do you mean more permissive as in... you can do what the hell you like with the code, without regard for who submitted it?
swaxtasticDec 24th 2009 6:00PM
The result of removing GPL from mono is that it can now be used in by MORE companies, in MORE products. Open source under GPL prevents code from being used in anything BUT GPL applications. LGPL/MIT license is true freedom from the shackles of ideology.
Sebastian AnthonyDec 24th 2009 6:09PM
Totally; though what's the point in having Moonlight open source/'free' if it's just going to be moved to a commercial license -- why doesn't Microsoft simply manage it? :)
swaxtasticDec 24th 2009 8:03PM
Moonlight is LGPL/X11, that's not changing.
Here's the point.
Think of Mono/Monodevelop/Moonlight as trunk open source products. Novell develops these cores and is able to make money by selling the rights to produce closed forks of these cores to third parties. For instance if a company wants to make a set top box using the moonlight, or you want to make an iphone app with MonoTouch and sell it.
These things can't be done if Mono has gpl code in it, but BSD, MIT, LGPL licenses makes these things a reality. Common code is contributed back to the trucks and everyone benefits. A nice open library, and the ability to make your own products with it, without giving your private source code away.
grumpyDec 24th 2009 7:58PM
Oh gawd, is it that hard to do an absolute *minimum* of research before posting "news"?
Mono is now available under a *less restrictive* license. With GPL, it would be impossible to use Mono in a large number of projects because GPL is viral - it requires you to open-source any derivative projects. If your code uses Mono, pretty much, you're required to open-source that.
Mono is now available under a license that allows you to use it *whether or not your open-source your own code*. The LGPL requires you to open-source any modifications you make to Mono, but not the projects that *use* it.
How exactly is it a bad thing that you can now use Mono in your project, which you couldn't before, unless you wanted to be subject to some conditions that make it a no-go in a lot of cases.
It is not "being moved to a commercial license". It is now possible to use it in commercial products *as well* as in open-source products and non-commercial closed-source projects.
With this announcement, Mono has been moved from a license that says "I'm going to use copyright law to the full extent to prevent you from doing *anything* with it that I, the author, don't like" to one which says "do whatever you like with it. But if you modify the Mono code, make the changes available".
There's a lot of bad tech articles on the web, but this is the first time I've seen anyone "interpret" a bit of news by turning it *completely* upside down.
In other news, watch out, Santa is in town tonight, and I've heard he steals presents from all the kids who've been nice this year. Also cakes are slimming. And watch out for the gas usage of electric cars.
Apparently we're living in opposite-land today.
Sebastian AnthonyDec 24th 2009 8:03PM
Fair points, and I won't refute them (not at 1am, when I should be sleeping, waiting for the morning and my presents to come sooner...)
Do you not think this indicates that Microsoft will soon buy out Novell, and thus control Silverlight on Linux?
Is that a good thing?
DykamDec 25th 2009 8:14AM
@Sebastian Anthony. They cannot undo the open sourceness of the code with these licences, neither could they when it was GPL. They have to ask every the owner of a piece of code if they want to assign the ownership to someone else, or follow the licence. Which in this case allows free use and change of the code. Even for commercial appliances. But this does not mean the existing code base can be closed-sourced.
Sebastian AnthonyDec 25th 2009 11:28AM
Oh, cool! Reassuring :)
Thanks for the info!
sRcDec 25th 2009 12:37PM
exactly. changing out of a GPL license makes it better for everybody. not just allowing commercial use of it addons to Moonlight, but there are other open source licenses too that are incompatible with the GPL (original BSD license, the Apache license, Mozilla license, as well as Microsoft's own public license are a few big ones, but theres a lot more as well).
there are some places GPL has a good place, but there are some places it simply is a pain. I never use it for things I work on, myself, I usually use the New BSD
Raffi12Dec 24th 2009 9:53PM
They're moving to a more permissive license than GPL, how is that a bad thing?
pristy.siteDec 25th 2009 1:59AM
Just remove that Mono and you're fine. Im not using it not linux not on Windows and that's final, Silverlight out!
Linux is not commercial product and you can't just put something out and force people to use it that M$ can make more money for who for what that retarded Ballmer can buy a new Ford, yeah right!
andrewthekenDec 25th 2009 8:59PM
Sebastian,
It seems like you're mixing up "Commercial-friendly" with "Proprietary"
Proprietary means that it's generally a secret and not open to the public review.
"Commercial-friendly" means that more companies are willing to touch it. Many companies are fine with using permissive licensing, but won't touch anything that's GPL'd.
MIT/BSD are about as liberal as they get, (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer), I have read most of the open source approved licenses more than once, and I think they pretty much spell out that you can use the code for whatever purposes you wish. The only more liberal licensing is "Public Domain" - I think a move away from the GPL (because *I think* most lawyers are unwilling/unable to draw the line of where one set of GPL code stops and code written with a different license starts).
Sebastian AnthonyDec 25th 2009 9:14PM
Thanks for the clarification -- at least you were calm about it, unlike some of the other dissenters :P
I guess it's back to the drawing board for the next GPL-related article.
Valery TolkovDec 25th 2009 10:44PM
GPLv3 is, probably, the most restrictive from all open licenses. So GPLv2 would be more free and commertial friendly. I hardly can imagine a business which uses GPLv3 software. So if Novel wants Mono to be used in real world, it should be GPLv2 at least.