Google, the company that made "don't be evil" its corporate motto, is shunning use of an open-source license variation that precludes use of software for evil purposes.
The matter illustrates the tensions between the sometimes free-wheeling ways of open-source programming world and the buttoned-down corporate realms where open-source software is no longer unusual. This particular issue bubbled up at Google Code, a site that hosts open-source projects from Google and others.
When he wrote JSMin, Douglas Crockford added this line to the open-source MIT License.
(Credit: Douglas Crockford)Google only permits software governed by a limited list of widely used open-source licenses to be hosted at Google Code; one that's permitted is the MIT License. Douglas Crockford picked a variation of the MIT license for his JSMin program to shrink JavaScript programs so that Web browsers can download them faster, and Ryan Grove carried that license over for his variation called JSMin-PHP rewritten in the PHP language.
JSMin-PHP had been hosted at Google Code until earlier in December, when it came to the attention of Chris DiBona, Google's open-source honcho, that the software's license had an extra requirement added to the regular MIT License:
"The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil."
"As Google (and some others) interpret it, this additional requirement constitutes a vague use restriction and thus makes the license non-free. Chris [DiBona] explained that if I were to remove that line from the license and 'return to a proper open source license that we support,' then jsmin-php could stay on Google Code. Otherwise, he said, 'we can't host you,'" Grove said on his blog. "Of course, I can't change the license, because it's not my license. It's Douglas's license...All derivative works and copies of jsmin.c either include this license or are in violation of it."
Consequently, Grove moved JSMin-PHP to the GitHub collaborative programming site. "If you currently have a project on Google Code that is derived from or includes jsmin.c, you might want to consider migrating to a new host with less restrictive policies," Grove added.
How did this all come about? According to a July speech by Crockford, who works for Yahoo and describes himself as a heretic, the license was an artifact of the George Bush administration's war on "evildoers." He uses the licenses for all the projects he's created, he said.
"This was late in 2002, we'd just started the war on terror, and we were going after the evildoers with the president and the vice president, and I felt like I need to do my part," he joked. "So I added one more line to my license, which was that 'the software shall be used for good, not evil.'"
"About once a year I'll get a letter from a crank who says, 'I should have a right to use it for evil! I'm not going to use it until you change your license.' Or they'll write to me and say: 'How do I know if it's evil or not? I don't think it's evil, but someone else might think it's evil, so I'm not going to use it,'" Crockford said. His conclusion: "My license works, I'm stopping the evildoers."
He's willing to grant an exception, though, he said.
"Also about once a year, I get a letter from a lawyer, every year a different lawyer, at a company--I don't want to embarrass the company by saying their name, so I'll just say their initials: IBM--saying that they want to use something I wrote," he said. "They want to use something that I wrote in something that they wrote, and they were pretty sure they weren't going to use it for evil, but they couldn't say for sure about their customers. So could I give them a special license for that? Of course. So I wrote back... 'I give permission for IBM, its customers, partners, and minions, to use JSLint for evil.'"
These days, though, lawyers are a real force in the programming world, and I can see how the line, however jokingly it might have been added, might cause corporate indigestion. Perhaps Crockford has no intention of enforcing the license, but perhaps some contributor to a project farther down the path of derivative works might have a more humorless interpretation.
After all, there have been efforts to add political elements into open-source and free-software licensing--for example, one variation of the GNU General Public License that prohibited military use of the software. And deeply held philosophical and ethical beliefs are certainly no stranger to the open-source and free-software realm.
Even if a company, project, or individual does conclude the license isn't onerous, that extra line adds a lot of busywork to the collective and never-ending task of evaluating software. I'm all for humor, principled positions, and honest debate, but I prefer it to take place where it won't hobble some other software project's prospects.
I know I sound stuffy (or perhaps "risk-averse" and "disconnected from the community," as Aaron Boodman would have it), but I hate to see good work fall by the wayside for what seems to me a reason that's secondary at best.
Updated 1:38 p.m. PST to clarify the nature of JSMin-PHP.
The GPL version 2 has been in decline for some time, and has just dipped below a 50 percent adoption rate among open-source projects, according to new data released by Black Duck Software.
While some of this decline may be due to GPL version 3's increased adoption, at least some may derive from growing commercial interest in Apache-style licensing.
GPLv2 adoption falls below 50 percent
(Credit: Black Duck Software)One of the best indications of this shift is Red Hat's decision to license the JBoss HornetQ project under an Apache license, rather than the Lesser General Public License, to which it had previously defaulted.
Having said that, it's important to note that Apache's share of the market hasn't been growing dramatically (see the July 2009 data), which lends further weight to a hypothesis that GPLv3 is cannibalizing GPLv2. Even so, I find the dip interesting, and anecdotally I'm seeing a groundswell of support for Apache.
This isn't to suggest that the GPL doesn't matter: it clearly does. As Redmonk analyst Stephen O'Grady recently noted, "the GPLv2 is more popular than all of the other licenses on the (Black Duck) list...combined."
But as Open Core becomes the default business model for "pure-play" open-source companies, we will see more software licensed under the Apache license.
The GPL makes sense in a world where vendors hope to exercise control over their communities (by constraining the sorts of derivative works that remain palatable to would-be competitors or "free-riding" users), but if the desire is to foster unfettered growth, Apache licensing offers a better path.
I don't see an end to GPL adoption anytime soon, as its ethos appeals to a certain class of developer and because it can offer tangible development and business benefits, as I'll be arguing at Monday's "Which open-source license is best?" discussion with the Free and Open Source Software Learning Centre. The whole Apache vs. GPL debate may be much like Coke vs. Pepsi: a matter of personal preference and nothing more.
With GPLv2 adoption dropping below 50 percent of open-source projects surveyed by Black Duck Software, however, it's very possible that preferences are starting to shift in favor of Apache licensing.
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
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Nvidia said Monday that Intel and a bevy of circuit board makers have licensed Nvidia graphics technology for future Intel chips.
Nvidia SLI graphics boards
(Credit: Nvidia)The leading graphics chip supplier for game PCs has licensed its Scalable Link Interface (SLI) technology to Intel and makers of PC motherboards, including Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI for future Intel chips. SLI is a technology for linking two or more graphics boards and used typically in high-end gaming boxes.
The licensing deal will allow Intel and others to offer SLI technology in "P55" motherboards that are used with Intel Core i7 and i5 processors. The latter series of processors have yet to ship. A motherboard is the main circuit board in a PC.
Nvidia said this is significant because Intel is licensing the technology before it rolls out new chips, a departure from how SLI licensing was worked out earlier this year between the two companies.
"What's exciting is that Intel signed on before the launch (of new chips). Before, they came on after the launch," said Nvidia spokesman Bryan Del Rizzo. "This makes it easier for system builders and OEMs (PC makers)," he said.
The previous agreement that Del Rizzo mentioned was announced in February for a prior generation of Intel motherboards.
"Nvidia SLI technology is a perfect complement to the processing prowess of our new Core i7 and Intel DP55KG desktop board," said Clem Russo, VP and General Manager of Intel Client Board Division at Intel Corporation, in a statement. "This combination will surely be attractive to anyone building or purchasing a brand new PC this fall," he said.
In addition to Intel Core i7 and Core i5 processors, Nvidia's SLI technology is also available for Advanced Micro Devices' Phenom II processor.
Monday's licensing agreement is not related to an ongoing dispute between Intel and Nvidia over chipset licensing, Del Rizzo said.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer continues to hemorrhage market share to Mozilla's open-source Firefox browser. But Microsoft is set to surpass Mozilla in one area: adoption of its open-source Microsoft Public License (MS-PL), according to research from Black Duck Software.
The MS-PL is now used by 1.02 percent of open-source projects. This is impressive given that it was only approved by the Open Source Initiative some two years ago. The Mozilla Public License (MPL), by contrast, has been around for many more years and is used by 1.25 percent of open-source projects, ranking ninth in terms of popularity. MS-PL is 10th but is gaining fast.
It's a matter of coloring inside the CodePlex lines.
The MPL offers some benefits over its long-serving peers like the GNU General Public License (50.17 percent market share), but often the benefits are outweighed by the sheer momentum of the GPL. Whatever its deficiencies, the GPL is a relatively well-understood license.
For those developers looking to go "off-piste" with a different license, and particularly for those with a Microsoft inclination--as is the case with Microsoft open-source code hosting repository CodePlex--it's far easier to opt to do so with the MS-PL versus the MPL, the Eclipse Public License, or another license.
As CodePlex continues to gain in popularity, I expect we'll see the MS-PL push past MPL and potentially even past the MIT License, which currently ranks seventh at 3.79 percent share. When that happens, it will be a sign that Microsoft has truly arrived as an open-source player.
Of course, I suspect that Microsoft would rather beat Mozilla in browser market share than in license market share. But you can't have everything, now can you?
Follow me on Twitter @mjasay.
Advanced Micro Devices is "not concerned" over rival Intel's threat to pull out of a patent cross-licensing agreement between the two chipmakers, says an AMD Asia-Pacific executive, even as the Intel-issued deadline for supposed action looms.
According to Intel, GlobalFoundaries, AMD's manufacturing spinoff and a joint venture with the Abu Dhabi government, is not a subsidiary of AMD and cannot be accorded the same rights under the cross-licensing pact. Intel said it would terminate all rights and licenses under the agreement if AMD does not correct the "alleged breach" by the given deadline, which expires Saturday.
In an interview Friday with ZDNet Asia, Benjamin Williams, AMD's corporate vice president and Asia-Pacific general manager, dismissed Intel's actions as a media blitz and said the issue has since "died down."
"It's one of those areas that we weren't concerned with, (and) we obviously would not have done and structured the deal the way we had, thinking there was some challenge with the licensing and structure," he noted. "You're not hearing anything about (the issue) now; we're not concerned with it."
Adding that "the license goes both ways," Williams said the agreement also impacts, among others, Intel's Nehalem architecture and integrated memory controller. "What (Intel) neglected to (say) is that it's a cross-license agreement, not a one-way agreement."
AMD previously said Intel's claims were an attempt to distract the public from its antitrust battle with the European Commission. The EC this week ruled that Intel engaged in anticompetitive practices and fined the chipmaker 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion). Market observers, however, said the antitrust ruling is unlikely to dramatically alter the balance between the two companies.
Intel was unable to respond at press time.
Vivian Yeo of ZDNet Asia reported from Singapore.
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Updated at 6:15 p.m. PST with AMD statement about a letter it received from Intel on January 20.
Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday reported a bigger-than-expected net loss of $1.4 billion for the fourth quarter of 2008. This is the chipmaker's ninth consecutive quarterly loss.
AMD also disclosed that it received a letter from Intel regarding the two companies' patent cross-licensing agreement.
The $1.42 billion loss, or $2.34 per share, was below the $1.77 billion loss, or $3.06 per share, reported a year ago but worse than Wall Street analysts had expected
Excluding one-time charges, AMD lost 69 cents per share, larger than the loss of 54 cents per share predicted by analysts.
AMD, like Intel and TSMC, has seen a precipitous drop in orders from customers.
Fourth-quarter 2008 revenue came in at $1.162 billion, down 35 percent compared to the third quarter of 2008 and 33 percent compared with the fourth quarter of 2007. Fourth-quarter 2008 revenue was down 28 percent sequentially, excluding third-quarter 2008 process technology license revenue of $191 million, AMD said.
For the year ended December 27, 2008, AMD had revenue of $5.808 billion, while the fiscal 2008 net loss was $3.098 billion. This compares with revenue of $5.858 billion and a net loss of $3.379 billion for fiscal 2007.
AMD provided little future guidance. "In light of the current macroeconomic conditions, very limited visibility and continued corrections in the supply chain, AMD expects first quarter 2009 revenue to decrease from the fourth quarter 2008."
Chief financial officer Bob Rivet said during the earnings conference call Thursday that "factory utilization will be crummy, considering the demand environment." This sentiment echoes what Intel said last week about abysmal factory utilization due to sinking demand from customers. And clear evidence of this trend was provided Wednesday when Intel said it would close five plants.
AMD had warned in December that fourth-quarter revenue would be significantly lower than previously expected.
AMD's stock has been trading around $2 and has lost more than 50 percent of its value since the end of September when the stock was trading above $5.
AMD receives letter from Intel
AMD also disclosed on Thrusday in an 8-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it received a letter from Intel relating to the patent cross license agreement between the two companies. The agreement covers the x86 instruction set architecture that the companies use in their processors.
An excerpt from the AMD statement in the 8-K filing is as follows: "On January 20, 2009 the Company received a letter from Intel Corporation relating to the 1976 and 2001 Patent Cross License Agreement between the Company and Intel (the 'Cross-Licenses'). In the letter, Intel requests a meeting with the Company to discuss whether The Foundry Company qualifies as a licensed 'Subsidiary' under the Cross-Licenses, whether the creation of The Foundry Company is a breach of the provisions of one of the Cross-Licenses and whether either the transaction establishing The Foundry Company or the Company's 2006 acquisition of ATI constituted a change of control of the Company under the Cross-Licenses."
The Foundry Company is the chip manufacturing operation that AMD is in the process of spinning off.
AMD said it "strongly believes that The Foundry Company qualifies as a 'Subsidiary' under the Cross-Licenses, that the creation of The Foundry Company is not a breach of the provisions of either of the Cross-Licenses and that neither the transaction establishing The Foundry Company nor the Company's acquisition of ATI constituted a change of control of the Company under the Cross-Licenses."
This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.
RealNetworks defeated a patent infringement suit that was trying to come back from the dead. Meanwhile, Global Crossing licensed a portfolio of call center patents from Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, an outfit that collects dough from a who's who of corporate America.
First, RealNetworks said Tuesday that it defeated an attempt by Friskit to revive a patent infringement suit that sought damages of $70 million. In a statement, RealNetworks outlined:
The Federal Circuit in Washington D.C. upheld a 2007 ruling in which Judge William W. Schwarzer of the Northern District of California invalidated all asserted claims. RealNetworks was one of the first patent defendants to rely upon the Supreme Court's decision in KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc. Judge Schwarzer agreed that Friskit's "inventions" were nothing more than obvious combinations of elements found in the prior art, including RealNetworks' own products.
In April 2006, Real won a similar suit.
On the other side of the patent ledger, Global Crossing said in a statement that it "will purchase a nonexclusive license under a comprehensive portfolio of patents that Katz owns relating to interactive voice applications."
Terms weren't disclosed, but at least Global Crossing isn't alone. Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing has collected dough from 275 companies including American Express, AT&T, Avon, Bank of America, Costco, CVS CareMark, First Data, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, T Rowe Price, Wal-Mart, and Whirlpool, to name a few.
Katz's background is interesting. He's a prolific patent enforcer--some would say troll.
The Katz dossier on Wikipedia has a bevy of notable nuggets including:
• A run-in with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office;
• Claims that run 100s of pages;
• Requests to reexamine Katz's patents abound.
Wikipedia notes:
In 1961, Ronald Katz co-founded Telecredit, Inc. This was the first company to "enable merchants to verify consumer checks over the phone using an automated system without the assistance of a live operator". In 1998, Mr. Katz formed a partnership with American Express Company to provide call processing services. That partnership later became First Data Corporation.Ronald Katz has since founded Ronald A. Katz Technology Licensing, L.P. (RAKTL). RAKTL's primary purpose is to license the Katz patent portfolio to companies using automated call centers. Over 150 companies have taken a license to the patents. RAKTL has thus earned approximately a billion dollars in license fees. Katz has been characterized as a patent troll largely due to the aggressive legal tactics used by RAKTL, such as suing infringers who refuse to take a license.
And why wouldn't you sue everyone? After all, everyone is paying up. A quick search shows a never-ending stream of press releases announcing that some outfit has licensed a Katz patent. Perhaps these patents are iron-clad. Or it could be that it's simply cheaper to license than fight. In either way Katz has a helluva business.
Hewlett-Packard on Thursday announced it has dropped a patent infringement charge against LexJet Corporation over the type of ink used in remanufactured HP print cartridges.
In exchange, LexJet has agreed to alter the recipe used to make its ink as well as pay HP an undisclosed sum.
HP originally filed suit against Florida-based LexJet on May 22.
LexJet is one of many companies that take used HP ink cartridges and resell them with their own ink inside. It's a sensitive topic for HP, one of the world's largest producer of printers and ink cartridges, which has sued several cartridge and ink makers in the past claiming infringement.
Update on October 9 at 9:00 a.m. with additional comments from Intel and AMD.
Advanced Micro Device's new manufacturing venture may come with some old baggage.
After AMD announced on Tuesday that it would spin off its manufacturing assets to a new company partially owned by the Abu Dhabi government, Intel was quick to warn AMD about patent and cross-licensing concerns.
AMD will own part of the new manufacturing entity, for the time being to be called The Foundry Company, while Advanced Technology Investment Co. (ATIC) will own the rest (55.6 percent) and have equal voting rights with AMD in The Foundry Company. The total investment is expected to come to approximately $8 billion.
Intel-AMD disputes are certainly not new. AMD sued Intel in 2005 alleging antitrust violations. But this time Intel has AMD in its sights.
At the moment, Intel is simply expressing concern about the deal, per the Patent Cross License Agreement between the two companies. (The two chipmakers have cross-licensing agreements that go back to 1976.)
The Agreement, which was signed in 2001 and expires in 2010, has restrictions related to the transfer of licenses and patents.
"We don't know enough yet. We have a lot of questions about how this deal is structured," said Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy.
"According to the public statements they made in their press releases, they (ATIC) also have 50 percent voting rights. So we need to understand a lot more about it. We just have to do due diligence. Make sure that our IP (intellectual property) rights are protected."
AMD, for its part, believes the transaction is structured in a way that doesn't violate any agreements. "We are completely confident the structure of this transaction takes into account our cross-license agreements. Rest assured, we plan to continue respecting Intel's intellectual property rights, just as we expect them to respect ours," said AMD spokesman Drew Prairie.
Transmeta's chips are on the block. The former supplier of low-power Intel-compatible processors said Wednesday that it is actively seeking a buyer, and also announced two agreements with Intel.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company, which has remade itself into a supplier of chip-related intellectual property, said that after exploring a range of "strategic alternatives" over the past few months and after strengthening its balance sheet, it will seek a sale as a way to "enhance value for all its stockholders."
Transmeta is working with financial adviser Piper Jaffray.
Back in February, Transmeta weighed an unsolicited offer from Riley Investment Management, which the company ultimately rejected. At that time, Riley claimed Transmeta had an unconvincing business strategy based on its LongRun2 technology--described by Transmeta as a suite of technologies for advanced power management and "leakage control." Riley claimed at the time that there was no "credible evidence" that shareholders would benefit from the LongRun2-related operating expenses.
Transmeta also announced Wednesday that it had entered into two agreements with Intel relating to the licensing of Transmeta technologies and intellectual property. The first agreement is a fully paid-up, nonexclusive technology licensing agreement that provides for the company to deliver "proprietary Transmeta computing technologies" to Intel and grants to Intel a nonexclusive license to use them.
The second agreement is an amendment to a previously announced settlement that Transmeta and Intel entered into on December 31, 2007, which granted Intel a perpetual nonexclusive license to all Transmeta patents and patent applications, including any patent rights later acquired by Transmeta before December 31, 2017.
That settlement provided for Intel to make five annual future payments to Transmeta of $20 million per year for each year from 2009 through 2013. "This amendment accelerates Intel's remaining future payment obligations under the settlement agreement," Transmeta said.
As a result, Transmeta expects to receive cash payments from Intel totaling $91.5 million before the end of Transmeta's current fiscal quarter ending September 30, the company said.
