NEWS&ANALYSIS
BI BARRELS FORWARD Technology and company changes set to
remold business intelligence PAGE 22
GPL 3 draft comes under fire
LATEST REVISION TAKES AIM AT NOVELL-MICROSOFT DEAL
B Ty Peter Galli at the Novell-Microsoft deal, est draft but was unhappy that Novell open-source offer-he third discussion saying in a statement that the license aims to prevent ings now and in the future.
draftforthenextversion therecent patentagreement similar agreements. “It is But, the Waltham, Mass.,
of the GNU General between the two companies unfortunate ... that the FSF company also acknowl-Public License is com- “aims to undermine these is attempting to use GPLv3 to edged that could change by
ing under withering freedoms. In this draft we prevent future collaboration the time the final version
fire as opponents push back have workedhardtoprevent among industry leaders to of the license is released,
at the Free Software Founda- such deals from making a benefit customers,” Gutier- expected to be late this sum-tion’s attempts to address the mockery of free software.” rez said. mer at the earliest. “If the
controversial Novell-Microsoft Horacio Gutierrez, Micro- Novell officials also wel- final version of GPL 3 does
patent deal. soft’s vice president of intel- comed the fact that the potentially impact the agree-
The new draft, released lectual property and licens- latest draft will not hinder ment we have with Micro-March 28, includes changes ing, in Redmond, Wash., was their company’s ability to soft, we’ll address that with
to the license compatibility pleased that his company’s include GPL 3 technolo- Microsoft,” said spokesper-terms to make them easier deal with Novell had been gies in SUSE Linux Enter- son Bruce Lowry.
to understand and adminis- “grandfathered” into the lat- prise, OpenSUSE and other Some of the harshest
ter, as well as narrowing the criticism came from the
requirements in previous A battle of wills Association for Competi-drafts so that manufacturers t i v e Te ch no l ogy, w h i ch
that include the software in The latest draft of the said the latest draft was
consumer products must GNU GPL is pitting the Free designed to limit coopera-also provide installation Software Foundation against tion between the open-information for the soft- several companies and an industry source and proprietary
ware along with the source trade group: software industries.
code. “The new GPL looks
In response to the Novell- At issue New patent requirements more like the U.S. tax
Microsoft deal, new patent to prevent future deals like the Novell-Microsoft code,” said Morgan Reed,
requirements have been one by preventing collusion between distributors executive director of ACT,
added that prevent distrib- and patent holders to indemnify users; the current draft grandfathers in Washington. “The new
utors from colluding with the agreement between the two companies, though that could draft no longer just defines
patent holders to provide change. freedom; it is designed to
discriminatory protection Pros FSF President Richard Stallman said such measures are punish companies and busi-from patents, said Brett needed to “prevent such deal deals from making a mockery of free ness models that Richard
Smith, the FSF’s licensing software.” Stallman just doesn’t like.”
compliance engineer. Cons Morgan Reed, executive director of the Association for The new patent provision
Richard Stallman, presi- Competitive Technology, said the draft punishes companies that was designed to prevent
soft-dent of the Boston-based Stallman disagrees with and “no longer just defines freedom.” ware patent holders from
FSF and principal author providing a partner’s custom-
Source: e WEEK reporting
of the GPL, also took aim [CONTINUED ON PAGE 10]
