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back to article VMware lawsuit fallout causes funding issues for GPL lobby group

The Software Freedom Conservancy is turning to open source citizens to fund its operations and reduce its reliance on big tech. The GPL campaign group is making the change, it claims, because its campaigning has put it at odds with corporate sponsors. The breaking point was the group’s decision to support a legal case by a …

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  1. Jeremy Allison

    Please help Conservancy !

    Thanks for highlighting this (disclosure, I'm on the Conservancy Board of Directors).

    Conservancy is the only organization doing GPL compliance work in the USA. Not only that, they do it in a reasonable and non-confrontational way:

    https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html

    But lots of corporations really don't like GPL compliance, to the extent of putting financial and political pressure on Conservancy for doing it at all. If we developers want the license enforced, we'll have to donate and fund it ourselves. Please help !

    23 1 Reply
    1. PushF12
      Reply Icon
      Holmes

      Re: Please help Conservancy !

      Was this consequence really a surprise?

      Corporations don't donate, they only invest, and thus expect a quid pro quo for all lobbying money.

      7 0 Reply
    2. dlc.usa
      Reply Icon

      Re: Please help Conservancy !

      "Conservancy is the only organization doing GPL compliance work in the USA."

      Ah, I think you forgot about the Free Software Foundation. They also seek to assist offenders with becoming compliant, and a lot of GPLed software copyrights have been assigned to them so they have standing to go to court if necessary.

      2 0 Reply
      1. Jeremy Allison
        Reply Icon

        Re: Please help Conservancy !

        No I haven't forgotten about the FSF. The FSF hasn't enforced the GPL on their copyrighted material for many years. Last time they did that was when Bradley Kuhn (who now works at Conservancy) worked there. Since he left they haven't done enforcement (are you seeing a pattern here ?).

        3 0 Reply
        1. dlc.usa
          Reply Icon

          Re: Please help Conservancy !

          Do you have evidence they are ignoring non-compliance regarding any rights they hold?

          0 0 Reply
    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Re: Please help Conservancy !

      It won't be much but where can I donate?

      0 0 Reply
      1. Jeremy Allison
        Reply Icon

        Re: Please help Conservancy !

        Here is the link for donations. Thanks !

        https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/

        0 0 Reply
  2. alain williams Silver badge

    ''GPL campaigning ... at odds with corporate sponsors''

    In other words the corporates expect to be able to take GPL products for free, make a few changes or incorporate it as part of their own software and sell it on.

    Parasites.

    If you get something for free don't insist that others have to pay for your tweaked version.

    16 4 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ''GPL campaigning ... at odds with corporate sponsors''

      "If you get something for free don't insist that others have to pay for your tweaked version."

      The GPL doesn't rule out charging money for the software. It requires that the source code is available to users.

      7 2 Reply
    2. Lars Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: ''GPL campaigning ... at odds with corporate sponsors''

      Please don't mud the waters with "If you get something for free don't..". The F in FOSS stands for Free (as in money too). And If I put together anything, what ever, using GPL software I can charge what ever , selling to who ever, who is willing to pay for if. What I have to do, if I conform to the GPL, is that I admit it (like in copyright), and I share the tweaks I have made to the software I distribute (if I made any) with the FoSS community. That is, in short, all there is to it.

      Still some companies find this difficult to grasp, Cisco, for instance, tried to fuck the rules years ago, probably because they felt they are too big to bother. To day you find a page in the manual referring to Linux. Using Linux as an example. And more or less all big companies who use Linux simply take part in that community, IBM have hundreds of people taking part because they gain from it (we, who ever we are, gain too).

      I suppose the MS FUD, apart from lack of information, is behind this silly confusion.

      As for the sentence "The Software Freedom Conservancy is turning to open source citizens to fund its operations and reduce its reliance on big tech". Yes I do think "The Software Freedom Conservancy" is needed, and as for the "big tech", perhaps some have got it and apply the rules and perhaps some feel to big again. Who knows, and this after twenty years with these simple rules.

      3 1 Reply
  3. Jamesit

    Selling free software

    "Please don't mud the waters with "If you get something for free don't..". The F in FOSS stands for Free (as in money too)."

    The F in FOSS stands for Free as in free speech not free beer, the prefered acronym is FLOSS(Free/Libre Open Source Software) charging money for free software is not a problem.

    Selling Free Software is OK!: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

    4 1 Reply
    1. Lars Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Selling free software

      @Jamesit, Yes, and as I think some people might miss-understand your comment, this is from your gnu.org link:

      "Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU Project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. This is a misunderstanding.

      Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If a license does not permit users to make copies and sell them, it is a nonfree license. If this seems surprising to you, please read on." That why the "too" in my (as in money too).

      The "Free" is a bugger, some in politics will deliver their free speech for free and then again the same spin for good money at some "dinner", where you are free to pay but not free not to pay, and so forth.

      1 0 Reply
  4. Wolfclaw

    VMWare must have something to hide !

    2 1 Reply
  5. MacroRodent

    Turned down for doing what everyone knew they would be doing....

    It was no secret the Software Freedom Conservancy might occasionally get involved in lawsuits to defend the GPL, so it is surprising that companies that do not like this ever sponsored it in the first place. Maybe they though the SFC was a toothless pet, and gave money just to improve their image with the free software community. Or a change of management.

    3 0 Reply
  6. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

    Does anyone else see something a bit hypocritical with companies presumably complaining about others "ripping them off" by ignoring copyright, but then pulling funding from someone who tries to do something about someone ignoring copyright ?

    2 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      If the law works FOR them and AGAINST you, it's a good law.

      If the law works AGAINST them and FOR you, it's a bad law.

      Hence the one-sided DMCA (and global equivalents) with the presumption of guilt and no penalties for false notices.

      0 0 Reply
  7. John Sanders
    Holmes

    Not only you can sell GPL software...

    You can also take GPL software, use it internally, change it and not share the changes with anybody else and keep it yours in secret forever or as part of your organization.

    What you can not do with the GPL is sell a commercial product based or derived of GPL source code for a profit without also making the source code available.

    Or

    Take GPL software and then distribute the software in modified or non-modified binary form without releasing the source code.

    That is all, the fact that most people in the industry is unable to grasp this amazes me.

    When people argue that the GPL doesn't give you enough freedom is because they do not agree with the above.

    1 0 Reply
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not only you can sell GPL software...

      "You can also take GPL software, use it internally, change it and not share the changes with anybody else and keep it yours in secret forever or as part of your organization."

      That depends won *WHICH* GPL the code is license under. If it's Affero-GPL, then you have to give those changes back even if you don't release them beyond your own servers.

      "When people argue that the GPL doesn't give you enough freedom is because they do not agree with the above."

      People claim that the GPL is non-free and that permissive license such as MIT are better because of the GPL's restrictions around the release of code. What these people completely fail to understand is that the GPL is not there to protect the user, the developer, the company or anything else. It's there to protect the code and the entire community that depends on said code. This is something the likes of MIT completely and utterly fail to do.

      So if VMWare (or whomever) want to take someone else's work for free (as in cost), make changes to it, sell for vast profits and not give those changes back to the community; they SHOULD NOT start off with GPL'd code. Simple.

      0 0 Reply

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