Linux license overhaul--don't hold your breath

The snowballing success of Linux has attracted involvement from all corners of the computing realm--but the breadth of that interest is expected to complicate a revision of the software's legal underpinnings.

The heart of the operating system is governed by a license called the General Public License, or GPL, last updated in 1991 but now being modernized. A key lawyer involved in that work, though, says the revamp won't be done until 2006 at the earliest.

When a draft of the new license is released, the debate will be contentious and resolving the issues will take at least one year, predicted Eben Moglen, a Columbia law professor and legal counsel for the Free Software Foundation that oversees the license.

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What's new:
Overhauling the GPL open-source software license may be a long, contentious struggle. The complexities of open-source licensing are becoming a bigger part of trade shows such as this week's LinuxWorld.

Bottom line:
Because the GPL now has so many constituents in so many parts of the globe, achieving consensus will be hard. Even its strong-willed original author, Richard Stallman, will probably have give some ground.

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"It has survived at present for almost 14 years. I think it is more or less inevitable it will see its 15th birthday," Moglen said in a speech at the OSDL Linux Summit this month.

Releasing a new license in 2006 or even 2007 may seem a long way off, but it's not when compared with the 100-year planning horizon of GPL creator and FSF founder Richard Stallman, Moglen said. "It is going to be a screaming match some days, but it is going to be a noble effort when it's over," Moglen said. And in the end, "Nobody, dare I say even Mr. Stallman, will get from this process everything he wants."

The license is being modernized to deal with new realities in the computing industry, such as widespread patenting of software, computers that will run only software that has been cryptographically signed and software services available over the Internet.

Scrutiny of the license is increasing as the free and open-source software projects it governs become promoted by mainstream computing companies and more widely used by conventional customers. And even though the SCO Group is having serious trouble with its $5 billion lawsuit against IBM--alleging that Big Blue violated a contract by moving proprietary Unix software to open-source Linux--the case has served to bring even more attention to open-source issues.

Licensing issues are assuming a higher profile at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in Boston this week. While numerous corporate allies such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Red Hat, Novell and Oracle will show their Linux faith at the show, small start-ups specializing in the licensing issues will also be on hand.

One start-up, Black Duck Software, plans to announce at LinuxWorld that it's signed up one of the largest software companies, SAS Institute, as a customer for software to make sure open-source and proprietary software isn't being intermingled. And Black Duck now has competition: At the Linux show on Tuesday, a rival called Palamida will announce itself and its product.

But the legal scrutiny, while burgeoning, isn't alien to the GPL. When Stallman launched his Gnu's Not Unix, or GNU, effort to clone Unix in

[Bill Dautrive]

Too bad MS is so shortsighted

They could not only gain alot of goodwill, but improve their projects. But that quote from the MS rep says it all: "we want to be able to steal code from others with impunity"<slightly paraphrased> :)

[John Kuzak]

steal code from others

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