Stallman: GPL doesn't guarantee software freedom
The freedom to fork is the essential right of open-source software. Until Oracle's attempted acquisition of Sun/MySQL, however, few realized just how important it would be to retain the right to fork one's own code.
After all, just because you have the letter-of-the-law right to fork doesn't mean you have a meaningful ability to do so. So long as you're not the primary copyright holder, you're always going to be second place, with second-place commercial opportunities in the software.
MySQL co-founder Monty Widenius hints at this in his letter to the European Commission, citing conflicts of interest between Oracle and MySQL development interests. Such conflicts wouldn't be of such importance were it not for the lack of external commercial appeal that stems from MySQL's use of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
Even Richard Stallman, co-author of the GPL and founder of the free-software movement, and not someone that spends much time worrying about monetization of open-source software, gets this.
As noted in a letter co-drafted with Open Rights Group and Knowledge Ecology International, Stallman notes that Oracle's proposed acquisition of MySQL could hurt its development because the GPL reduces incentives to commercialize the code:
The acquisition of MySQL by Oracle will be a major setback to the development of a FLOSS database platform, potentially alienating and dispersing MySQL's core community of developers. It could take several years before another database platform could rival the progress and opportunities now available to MySQL, because it will take time before any of them attract and cultivate a large enough team of developers and achieve a similar customer base.
Given that forking of the MySQL code base will be particularly dependent on FLOSS community contributions - more so than on in-company development - the lack of a more flexible license for MySQL will present considerable barriers to a new forked development path for MySQL. [Emphasis added.]
For those who have been reading/hearing Stallman for the past 10-plus years as I have, this admission is shocking in the extreme. The GPL, which is supposed to be the ultimate guarantor of software freedom, may deliver the opposite. Because of its control-freak urges, it can stymie competition, which is presumably why Stallman is now calling on the European Commission to grant what his license couldn't: freedom.
Now consider if MySQL were licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. MySQL 2 could arise, take the code, hire all of the developers, and development of the open-source database would not miss a beat.
Could MySQL 2 achieve the same with the GPL? No, it could not, because the copyright holder, Oracle, would always have a superior commercial opportunity, because it has more rights than downstream users, as the GPL leaves the copyright holder with a greater range of business model options, and not simply support/services.
Apache leaves everyone--developers, users, vendors, etc.--on equal footing. The GPL does not. With the GPL, the copyright holder retains effective control.
That's one reason it has been so popular with commercial open-source companies, but the Oracle/MySQL situation may prompt more companies to consider using an Apache license so as to preserve maximum freedom in case of takeover, hostile or otherwise.
Disclosure: My company uses the GPL but has been actively considering areas to use Apache licensing.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
First, a MySQL fork has all rights except a) use of the trademark MySQL and b) the right to grant non-GPL licenses. MySQL sells an OEM version of product that is not GPL, hence non-viral. While originally an important revenue stream, it is strategically insignficant. MySQL gets the bulk of its revenue to enterprise accounts, a requirement for access to support.
Second, there isn't a MySQL developer community. To preserve the ability to sell OEM licences, MySQL has never been able to use GPL code itself or to accept contributions from developers unwilling to sign *all* rights to MySQL. Practically speaking, there are virtually no community contributions.
Third, let us not forget that Monty competes with MySQL and has a vested interest in MySQL's weakening or even failing. Monty has a problem with principles when there is a buck at stake.
Finally, Oracle owns InnoDB, MySQL's only transactional storage engine. Without InnoDB, MySQL is not commercially viable. If Oracle wanted to put a stake in MySQL's heart, they could have withdrawn MySQL's ability to sell InnoDB. Oracle could have, but didn't, which takes some of the boggie out of the boggie-Oracle.
One has to wonder whether Stallman has bothered to do his homework. From all appearances, he hasn't.
First, in fairness to Stallman, when he talks about a "lack of a more flexible license" for MySQL he's really talking about GPL v3 -- or more specifically mixing v2 and v3 code together in a possible future fork. Matt's selective quoting above seem to misrepresent Stallman's position by removing its context.
Second, even under GPL v2, there is *nothing* preventing a "MySQL 2" to "arise, take the code, hire all of the developers, and development of the open-source database would not miss a beat." A new entity under GPL *can* fork MySQL code and do all that. What the new entity *cannot* do is re-license the forked code under a different license -- including GPL v3, or a separate Commercial License under a dual-licensing scheme.
So we finally get into the crux of the issue which Matt curiously omits: dual-licensing of GPL v2 code. We all knew it was "evil". Now we're all acting surprised that it could be "evil". Dual-licensing allows companies to give out crack to babies, and then charge them $$$ once they're hooked... completely against the spirit of GPL.
Now, I'm not a fan of GPL. I've been a long proponent for BSD-style licenses (which Apache derives from). Lots of companies "talk" about relicensing from GPL to Apache... but actions speak louder than words.
You end up losing all of the rights to your work, along with control.
Not a good thing unless you want to seed the development community so that you can take their efforts and build/market your own version.
For many companies, open source isn't much more than a gimmick: a glorified marketing tool and a way to get development & QA done for free by building a so-called "community".
Others compete by offering superior services based on open source solutions. The fact that others can build and market their own version is not an issue as it only increases the potential services market. This happens anyway in the GPL world: e.g., many Linux vendors will happily provide services for practically any Linux distribution, not just the ones distributed by the vendor.
So, when you read the letter, there is nothing "shocking in the extreme" at all about Stallman's statement. He and the FSF worked for years with everyone interested in developing a new version of the GPL, version 3, and somehow it is surprising that he thinks GPLv3 is an improvement and that people will be inclined to move to it?! That's absurd. Obviously Stallman thinks GPLv3 is an improvement over GPLv2 and provides greater flexibility than v2 or there would have been no motivation to create the new version.
MySQL also was licensed simply under GPLv2, not under "GPLv2 or any later version" as is commonplace and has also long been advocated by the FSF because they have always recognized this issue: times change and preferred licenses may change and so the wise thing to do is to make it easy for the community around a project to shift to new licenses that may come along. It was MySQL's original decision not to adopt the "or any later version" language that caused a decrease in desirable flexibility here, not the GPL itself.
Yes folks, a former adviser to MySQL now advises the EU. Seems they're not all the clueless chickenheads Mr Asay would like us all to think they are. In fact, wasn't it Mueller who alerted the EC to the need to investigate this merger in the first place? I note he left those bits out of the main article as well.
I especially like his selective quoting of "MySQL needs a different home than Oracle, a home where there will be no conflicts of interest concerning how, or if, MySQL should be developed further." followed by a conclusion he's probably found down the back of the sofa while completely missing out Mueller saying:
"every day that passes without Oracle excluding MySQL from the deal is further evidence that Oracle just wants to get rid of its open source challenger and that the EU's investigation is needed to safeguard innovation and customer choice. This is highly critical because the entire knowledge-based economy is built on databases."
So what they're actually saying is that Oracle wants to crush MySQL precisely because of it's external commecial appeal, which would be the precise opposite of the conclusion Matt can only have reached by cognitive dissonance.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10379870-38.html
But of course he likes to blame the GPL, because it's his favourite whipping boy and neatly avoids the lack of community or any external development MySQL enjoys these days.
I especially like the part where Mueller descrives those who have declared the EC to be clueless about the whole thing (like Matt has repeatedly) as "inappropriately arrogant".
Of course, Matt doesn't write many articles these days that aren't beating on one of his favourite dead horses and the GPL is his very favourite. This used to be an interesting and informative blog, now someone needs to be found who can actually write objectively about open source again because damn if this isn't just a one man campaign for his petulant agenda.
P.S. I've been advocating the GPL for years, most recently against the EPL and Apache licenses. See http://www.fosslc.org/drupal/node/523.
So don't selectively read my posts/work and then create a straw man. Yes, I like the Apache license more and more these days. Yes, the GPL stifles some commercial opportunities and doesn't necessarily help customers.
But yes, it's sometimes absolutely the right tool for the job.
P.P.S. It's weird to get religious about a license. It's just a license, my friends.
That you can point to a contradiction is typical and laughable.
"Many other FLOSS software projects are expected to move to GPLv3, often automatically due to the common use of the "any later version" clause. Because the current MySQL license lacks that clause, it will remain GPLv2 only and it will not be possible to combine its code with the code of many GPLv3-covered projects in the future. Given that forking of the MySQL code base will be particularly dependent on FLOSS community contributions - more so than on in-company development - the lack of a more flexible license for MySQL will present considerable barriers to a new forked development path for MySQL."
So, when Stallman writes about a lack of flexibility he's specifically writing about MySQL being released only under version 2 of the GPL and it being not usable with GPLv3 code which is not backtracking, is not a change of mind and is perfectly in line with the recommendations of the FSF for some time now as can be seen in the recommended licensing text here:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-howto.html
"Foobar is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version."
It can also currently be seen via Google Cache on an old page related to v2 (the site's content has been modified recently) which was apparently available just two weeks ago.
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:Qtl0RPWYpKAJ:www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/info/GPLv2orLater.html/view+%22version+2+or+later%22+site:fsf.org&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=firefox-a
"This is a copyleft license. We recommend it for most software packages. It allows distribution under version 2 of the GNU GPL, or any version that the Free Software Foundation later releases."
So, this is as far from the volte face that you would like to represent it as, as is possible Matt.
So far in this you've misrepresented the people behind this EC investigation as unable to understand the market despite the key person behind it having been a strategic adviser to MySQL AB, you're ignoring that it's one of the people who has been claimed as a safety net for MySQL that is against the current form of merger precisely because he doesn't consider there to be a viable alternative developer or vendor and you're selectively quoting Stallman to misrepresent him as well making this big claim that he's going back on himself when it's clear to anyone who knows the views of the FSF and what he's actually written in this letter that he's being as rigidly consistent and unyielding as ever.
Your problem here Matt, is that I've not been nearly as selective in my reading here as you have in your quoting.
As others have said Matt is misrepresenting what Stallman said in an attempt to push his latest obsession: the Apache license.
It's amazing to me that you isolate the facts like you do. Matt, you're anti-GPL tirade, where you twist reality to your way of thinking, is making you look increasingly old-world-minded and out-of-touch.
The GPL prevents forking? Not in the least, and the list of forked GPL projects that go on to replace or overshadow their forebears is quite extensive. True the copyright holder can prevent the fork from using the same *name* as the original or previous version. So, yes, the onus is on the forking individuals to make sure the new project gets publicity etc. under the new name. I think that's only fair. And it's still possible under the GPL to public-domain these things or use a creative commons license for stuff that might otherwise be copyrighted.
I think people use the GPL to assure the developer community that their contributions *and derivatives thereof* will always always remain open to them, and that's a big draw that other OSS licenses may omit. And I daresay that's one factor in why your company uses it. Of course your project is free to use any license you want.
The right to dual license is not necessarily a detriment to forking.
- by Chris_Maresca October 21, 2009 2:25 PM PDT
- License is immaterial. Other posters have it right, if you are concerned about freedom as in freedom of speech (which is what Stallman was referring to), then a GPL license is probably one of the best solutions. If you are concerned about absolute freedom, then BSD or Apache is probably what you would like.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
-
- by Matt Asay October 23, 2009 12:26 PM PDT
- Bingo. A sane voice. You might disagree with most of what I wrote, but this is absolutely correct. Thank you.
- Like this
-
(16 Comments)However, in either case, copyright holders RETAIN FULL CONTROL. They can do whatever they want to the source code, the license is just a right of usage. Almost everyone in the open source community has failed to grasp this. Which is probably a good thing as it has allowed the development of a number of interesting business models (some of which I helped create).
The irony is, now that commercial concerns are what everyone (including Stallman...) in the open source community are focusing on, there is the sudden realization that license alone are not a panacea... Linus foresaw this years ago, which is why he opted for the GPLv2 + fragmented copyright. That insures good flexibility (with none of the political nonsense of GPLv3) while insuring no single point of control.