The Death of "Free" Software . . . or How Google Killed GPL
The Death of "Free" Software . . . or How Google Killed GPL
by Annette Hurst (@divaesq)*
The developer community may be celebrating today what it perceives as a victory in Oracle v. Google. Google won a verdict that an unauthorized, commercial, competitive, harmful use of software in billions of products is fair use. No copyright expert would have ever predicted such a use would be considered fair. Before celebrating, developers should take a closer look. Not only will creators everywhere suffer from this decision if it remains intact, but the free software movement itself now faces substantial jeopardy.
While we don't know what ultimately swayed the jury, Google's narrative boiled down to this: because the Java APIs have been open, any use of them was justified and all licensing restrictions should be disregarded. In other words, if you offer your software on an open and free basis, any use is fair use.
If that narrative becomes the law of the land, you can kiss GPL goodbye.
No business trying to commercialize software with any element of open software can afford to ignore this verdict. Dual licensing models are very common and have long depended upon a delicate balance between free use and commercial use. Royalties from licensed commercial distribution fuel continued development and innovation of an open and free option. The balance depends upon adherence to the license restrictions in the open and free option. This jury's verdict suggests that such restrictions are now meaningless, since disregarding them is simply a matter of claiming "fair use."
It is hard to see how GPL can survive such a result. In fact, it is hard to see how ownership of a copy of any software protected by copyright can survive this result. Software businesses now must accelerate their move to the cloud where everything can be controlled as a service rather than licensed as software. Consumers can expect to find decreasing options to own anything for themselves, decreasing options to control their data, decreasing options to protect their privacy.
Google is an advertising company. It does not depend upon traditional software licensing and is therefore free to disregard the protections that traditional software licensing provides. Nonetheless, Google exerts control over its APIs. Google prohibits copying of its APIs for competitive uses. In fact, Google has in the past settled with the FTC over the manner in which it has restricted its APIs.
Developers beware. You may think you got a win yesterday. But it's time to think about more than your desires to copy freely when you sit down at a keyboard. Think about the larger and longer term implications. You should have been on Oracle's side in this fight. Free stuff from Google does not mean free in the sense Richard Stallman ever intended it.
*Views expressed herein are entirely my own and not intended to be the statement of any client.
Ingénieur Logiciel & Directeur de la SSII Baraka Software
7yI wish to emphasize one of the points of the true sense of the problem in Oracle and Google that alot ignore, and in my opinion this explicit comparison of the cases of APIs in a real world context. I quote a small example that can understand the real world. Hoping that compraison is near. "I apologize for my English a little" "I'm a creator printer, I recently designed a printer that I give JPRINT mark, flexible, expandable innovative cartridges. My goal is not only to market printer, but to make a printer universal or open the world of the printer, this for my JPRINT printers can find manufacturers who will create compatible cartridges, be more powerful than mine, and like other manufacturers can create other printers that JPRINT my JPRINT cartridges will work on it. I make public the necessary design of the exterior of the cartridge JPRINT places to allow other manufacturers to create compatible cartridges JPRINT. This will even other contructors create other JPRINT printers compatible to my JPRINT cartridges. They can even come and ask a compatibility certificate recognized to create the true image of their products. Certificates that I release my choice after making the necessary tested and they will pay of course. The aim is to "create a single cartridge and use it everywhere." I accept the competition and I encourage innovation. Open other markets for my cartridges. I would produce and would sell much, and if you lack cartridges for my printer JPRINT somewhere in the world; we find other cartridges, possible cheaper or good as mine, and my JPRINT gain success in the world. I have made the public external design, any time the intellectual property rights back to me. "I grant the right to copy to everyone that it is explicitly or not, but based on my intentions clear to everyone and a set of rules to follow," and my intentions are normally also a reference in jurisprudence case of conflict. Then the game is clear, we accept innovation, but minimume ds things is that if you copy my external design JPRINT cartridges spaces to create a printer, so my JPRINT cartridges should run on your printers and those that create d other JPRINT cartridges for your printer target must be able to target my JPRINT printers without any changes. Winner winner like this balance is created in the market by accepting competition. Things move very well, success is everywhere, we even create a JPRINT community that includes several people including Messrs A, R, G .... We decide together any developments JPRINT and versions. Suddenly Mr. G JPRINT member of the community comes with its engineering establishment printer, he designed an ingenious printer from all sides, but given the success of JPRINT, it copies the external design JPRINT cartridges places, all times it adds a trick that when finishing the cartridge, it is not compatible with JPRINT standard printers. So, my JPRINT cartridges no longer work on these printers, and those who create cartridges that still use my design JPRINT but targeting Mr. G printers can not use them in my JPRINT printers. His engineering printers establishment attracts the world, gaining success. My cartridges, after a time, become unused, my JPRINT printers are stored in closets, I can no longer happen again. Me innovator who tried to open the world of the printer, I found most loser in all this. So I filed a complaint against Mr. G have copied my design, because I think he has changed the rules of the game and the market, even if others have had the right to copy, but I pursues justice not because they respect the rules of the games. So I recelame my right on this illegal copy without my permission and puts in danger my product, and I want to remove the copy right to Mr. G. Some say this would violate innovation. " So put yourself in my place who killed actually innovation, which is or was malicious, YOU THINK I HAVE NO RIGHT IN ALL THIS. Who buried Java ME? Do not know it was a success if android apps running on it and vice versa? What would also speed up Java mobile side with a strong community. Google was malicious, he knew what he does, he stole his product équette "free open source" but in fact it was to kill the java Oracle. If he really wanted to do the java like everyone else he was given .jar compatibility with applications, but it creates its own .apk format to get away from the world while enjoying the Java Java API. Ridiculous that such enreprise do that and it is not condemned. It's simple as Google go create their own API as it does over our java apps.
Software Developer at Lucid Manufacturing
7yThere is no need for you to engage in wild speculation about what Richard Stallman or GPL authors believe about the Oracle copyright claims because they have actually made their position crystal clear: "Were it grounded in reality, Oracle's claim that copyright law gives them proprietary control over any software that uses a particular functional API would be terrible for free software and programmers everywhere. It is an unethical and greedy interpretation created with the express purpose of subjugating as many computer users as possible, and is particularly bad in this context because it comes at a time when the sun has barely set on the free software community's celebration of Java as a language newly suitable for use in the free world. Fortunately, the claim is not yet reality, and we hope Judge Alsup will keep it that way." - http://tinyurl.com/hhfabch
Senior Support Maintenance Engineer at Red Hat
7y"Google doesn't like GPL", it's the only part of the article which I agree, the rest is just funny :-) The proof that Google prefer BSD, Apache and other non-totaly-free licenses is the removal of Busybox from Android.
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7yAnnette Hurst was one of the attorneys for Oracle in the case she's talking about. Her argument here is weak because their case was weak.
Director and Open Source Consultant, Age of Peers, Inc.
7ySteve, I too find it poorly argued. But so are many articles written by self-proclaimed experts in the matter (licensing, esp. "free" licensing). There is also that population eager to announce the end of the free licensing experiment. (Analogues to other supposedly failed grand efforts to establish a robust space for the commons are not coincidental.)