GPL: The Best Open Source Licence for Small Business
James Bottomley
jejb@linux.ibm.com
Twitter: @jejb_ Matrix: @jejb:hansenpartnership.com
About Me
Container evangelist
Open Source Advocate
- Converting Business to Open Source
- Lead effort to create LF TAB
Kernel Developer
- SCSI Subsystem Maintainer
- PA-RISC architecture Maintainer
Disclaimer: Talk based on Personal Opinion and Observation
Most of the persuading businesses to use GPL experience
was gained at multiple companies
May attribute (to me not to IBM) anything I say in this talk
What Is Community?
Community in Open Source essentially means built by engineers for engineers (self organising)
Best community and code is built by engineers with ένθεος
Caring for the code drives caring for the community
Facts and Myths about Community
In Open Source it's a group of people working together and tends to be Self Organizing
People who care about and want to work on the project (code, doc, CI ...)
Have to share a common set of Goals
But don't have to share every goal
Definitely don't have to share a set of values
Just have to have enough goal alignment to work together
Users don't tend to figure strongly in this community.
A primary value of Corporations in a community can be representing users
However, communities can also be very wary of corporations
With good reason: Almost every corporation acts for market advantage
market advantage is measured in dollars not community
So how can communities trust corporations?
And how then do corporations influence communities on behalf of their
users?
The solution to the trust problem can be licensing and goal alignment
Types of Open Source Licences
Permissive: Doesn't impose obligations coupled to code,
no requirement to disclose modifications
Apache; BSD; MIT ...
Reciprocal: imposes obligations coupled to code,
requires disclosure of modifications
GPL; AGPL; MPL
Large Business prefers Permissive Licences (minimize legal issues
while encouraging uptake)
Worries of Smaller Corporations about Open Source
Investing hugely in code that a competitor uses against you
Uncontained business risk
Loss of Intellectual Property
Permissive licence with patent grants cause massive IP
leakage. Code can go anywhere and so can captured patents.
With Reciprocal licences the IP leakage is bounded to where
the code is seen to go.
Loss of Control Generally; particularly to Competitors or Usurpers
Business goal is dominance, but can be made to settle for equity
Values vs Goals
Open Source vs Free Software
Free Software requires you to support a set of values (Four Freedoms)
Open Source only requires some commonality in goals
A corporation whose goal is to dominate the market can march a long way
with a community before the goals diverge
Free Software Philosophies are often an anathema to a Corporation
GPL as the Perfect Licence
Reciprocity is the key
Use my code but give back modifications is fair to communities
Reciprocity contains intellectual property leakage in a business
Competitors and Userpers can't out innovate you with your own
code if you can see what they're doing.
Inbound = Outbound + DCO ensures perfect equality in contribution
Builds communities with no inequity in the power balance
Equity restores trust and thus makes Corporations useful to Communities
Equity also levels the playing field with other Corporations
Selling point: Code as an essential utility not code as a differentiator.
Persuade the Business Owner not the Corporate Counsel
Corporate Fears about GPL
The Licence emodies the values of the Community
Often used to tar the GPL with the FSF Philosophy
Rubbish: Licence is consonant with the philosophy but doesn't "embody" it
GPLv2 merely embodies reciprocity; GPLv3 only shifts this slightly
The licences are remarkably value free
Compliance is Hard
Enforcement is Bad (I could get sued)
Compliance is Governanace
Without compliance there is no reciprocity and thus no equity
Enforcement ensures compliance
Compliance is Risky
Conclusions
reciprocal licences embody fairness
If a corporation can't have dominance it
will (eventually) settle for fairness
Compliance and Enforcement are necessary expression of Governance
Don't be afraid of self interest: with a reciprocal licence it's why we
trust you
Web Developer!
Thank You!
Questions?