[DMCA-Activists] Pavlicek on GPL, Free Software in Government, Private Appropriation of Public Research

[Seth Johnson]

Wow, Russell Pavlicek really starts to hit on ALL chambers
here.

Seth

> From Infoworld

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RUSSELL PAVLICEK:    "The Open Source"    InfoWorld.com
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http://63.115.136.15/go/infoworld/4567143.html

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DON'T FEAR THE GPL

A FEW SOFTWARE companies (I'll let you guess which one heads
the list) have spent a considerable amount of time recently
trying to convince folks that the GNU GPL (General Public
License) is evil. Well, it's not. In fact, the GPL is
perhaps the most empowering license that an end-user of
software could ever receive.

Why? Because the GPL ensures that the software user has full
access to the source code. It also grants you permission to
modify the software as you see fit, as well as permission to
redistribute both the original software and your
modifications. That's a lot of power for an end-user.

But what if your organization wants to modify a piece of GPL
software to add some logic that you want to keep secret?
Does the GPL demand that you spill trade secrets to
competitors just to modify the software? Not at all -- as
long as you don't redistribute the software. If you are
keeping the modifications for use in-house, you can do
anything you'd like to the source code. But if you decide to
start distributing the software, you will need to include
your modified source code with it. Because most end-user
companies don't want to enter the software business, this is
a non-problem.

But some vendors insist that the GNU General Public License
is a threat. In particular, they claim that publicly funded
software development should not use the GPL. Why? Because
once the source code is under the GPL, they cannot make a
closed-source derivative and then charge high prices for the
result. Sure, they can charge for their GPL code (there is
nothing in the license against that), but they won't be able
to restrict the redistribution of the code to others.
Realistically, they can make money off the research code;
they just won't be able to make obscene amounts of it,
that's all.

Is this wrong to deprive corporations from making a profit
from publicly funded software development? Hardly. Which is
more deplorable: that a few profit-making software companies
won't be able to make as much profit from publicly funded
software, or that the public who already paid for the
software once with their tax dollars will have to pay for it
again when the large software company puts it into their
closed-source product?

I'm all for companies making a profit. But I don't think
profits should come at the taxpayer's expense, especially
when that expense is paid twice over.

Government-sponsored research would serve the public well by
releasing code under the GPL. If a company wants to use the
research in a closed-source product, it can always develop
its own independent implementation and use the GPL code for
comparative testing. That's a lot fairer than expecting
citizens to pay for the code all over again.

The GPL is no bogeyman. But it does give incredible power to
the end-user organization. And that makes some software
vendors afraid.

http://Russell Pavlicek is a contributing editor for
InfoWorld. Contact him at
address@hidden, or join his forum
at www.infoworld.com/os.