5 ms·

I worked at VMware for a couple years and this was a contributing factor to why I left. I know a number of people that felt it was a GPL-violation and refused t

I worked at VMware for a couple years and this was a contributing factor to why I left. I know a number of people that felt it was a GPL-violation and refused to work on that product because of it, myself included. The lawyers in that company have a somewhat different interpretation of the GPL/LGPL than I've seen elsewhere in my career.

malandrew 11y ago
Are you at liberty to elaborate on how they interpret the GPL/LGPL differently than what you've seen elsewhere in your career?
- dkarapetyan 11y ago
  At liberty to elaborate always sounded like a weird phrase to me. Of course he is. As a free citizen in a free society he can speak his mind freely.
  - jordigh 11y ago
    People can choose to give up that liberty by signing contracts. :-(
    - jsprogrammer 11y ago
      Not really. Do you have an example of the enforceable language you are referring to?
      - RussianCow 11y ago
        Signing an NDA takes away your liberty to disclose certain things. I'm not sure what you're trying to dispute.
        deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
        jsprogrammer 11y ago
        That would depend on the nature of the language of the NDA. If you have no example language, you're right, there is nothing to dispute.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        That's why 'malandrew asked, "Are you at liberty to elaborate?" - in other words, "does the langauge of NDA or whatever other contract you have signed, or the risk your boss getting medieval on your ass, preclude you from elaborating?".
        jsprogrammer 11y ago
        It's a question, but unfortunately, no direct answer that can be given will really tell us about the actual language. All that can be given is someone else's interpretation of the language, which may or may not be accurate.
    - BinaryIdiot 11y ago
      Well no that doesn't technically mean he gave up his "liberty", it just means he promised not to do it at risk of being sued for breach of contract. That's all. You can't be thrown in jail for breaking an NDA.
      - ChuckMcM 11y ago
        But you can end up in bankruptcy court. And of course if you're found guilty of violating your NDA that shows up in background checks which pretty much makes you unemployable in the US (in the tech industry at least). Basically it seems kind of silly to tightly define it as "going to jail", when the practical aspects of willfully violating an NDA can ruin your life (which may or may not be worse than going to jail depending on circumstances)
        BinaryIdiot 11y ago
        > Basically it seems kind of silly to tightly define it as "going to jail", when the practical aspects of willfully violating an NDA can ruin your life (which may or may not be worse than going to jail depending on circumstances) It was specifically referred to as your "liberty" which is incorrect. I never argued that violating an NDA could or could not result in something worse than jail time.
        emn13 11y ago
        What is liberty if not the absence of restrictions on your choices. Clearly, the repercussions described might heavily impact your liberty in that sense. (For that matter, even prisoners have some liberties...)
        jsprogrammer 11y ago
        It's near pointless arguing actual logical positions based on real definitions here. People will bring in their own assumptions and project those onto any words you use. When a logical rebuttal can't be made, some will just downmod you to bury your arguments (as you can see actually happened).
      - 11y ago
  - kangman 11y ago
    he could be bound by some NDA(non-disclosure-agreements) when he left.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    They are free to speak their mind. However, they are not free from the potential consequences of doing so.
- audidude 11y ago
  Quite honestly, I'm more worried about inaccurately portraying their viewpoint. Most of my teams run-ins with the lawyers was LGPL related, and their interpretation of LGPL 2.1 section 6a.
  - hansjorg 11y ago
    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.en.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.en.html (removed wall off text quoting 6a, was a bit too long)
  - snuxoll 11y ago
    I don't really see how 6a is open for interpretation. If you use a library licensed under LGPL2.1 or higher the user must be able to replace the library with a modified copy, this is why Mono cannot be used on iOS or Android without a commercial license. VMWare is a pretty scummy company, thankfully open source virtualization has come a long way - it's not 100% yet but oVirt does a pretty good job at replacing vCenter IMO.
    - 0x0 11y ago
      Is that true now that the latest ios/xcode combo allows anyone with an apple id to self sign most apps (those that don't require specific entitlements like push messages)? If the problem is that you have to use a new app ID and cannot seamlessly install over the existing app, how is that different from using LGPL software installed in /usr/bin on a machine where you haven't been granted root access?
      - snuxoll 11y ago
        You've always been able to do this. You could distribute your Xamarin.iOS application as source-only and require users compile it themselves without being in violation of the license, but you still cannot release it on the App Store without a commercial license (since it is impossible without jailbreaking to replace the .so).
- xienze 11y ago
  Everywhere I've worked, anything with the letters "G", "P", and "L" was to be avoided like toxic waste. Just too much concern about running afoul of it and having to open source the whole product.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    The GPL is a license like any other license. If you violate it, you may be sued. The result of that lawsuit would be that you would be liable to hand over an amount of money and also potentially have an injunction on further distributing your product. This is the exact same thing that would happen if you violated any other license, so there is not any additional risk to using the GPL. I think the confusion that one would have to "open source the whole project" comes from the offer that many GPL authors make to violators of their license. Very frequently, if you violate a GPL license, the author will offer to allow you to continue to use the code as long as you comply with the GPL. The author does not have to make such an offer and, in fact, this point is spelled out very clearly in the GPL itself. If you violate the license, you lose any right to use the software, unless forgiven by the author. Since many authors are not interested in suing anyone and are only interested in compliance, they make the offer anyway. Usually the offer is accepted, or the GPL code is removed from the software (there have been very, very few GPL violations that have actually gone to court). If you buy some software library from somewhere, it will also have a license for use. You are only allowed to use the software according to the license. If you use it in other ways (for example, you accidentally use it for product A, but you have only licensed it for product B), you can expect to be sued. You will have to pay some money and may have an injunction against distributing your product. It is exactly the same. I've talked with several lawyers at large tech companies that I worked with who avoided the GPL. In one particular case, they had signed an agreement to avoid the GPL (very likely with Microsoft) and were thus were obliged to forbid its use. However, in other cases, I have found the sticking point usually is in the way the agreement is made. In most software licenses, you can not run the software without agreeing to the license. With the GPL, it explicitly says that you may use the software for any purpose without accepting it. You may even modify the software and even link it to your own code. You only have to accept the license when you distribute it. For the lawyers I talked to, this was very confusing. They had never seen language like that before and were very hesitant to touch a license like it, just because they couldn't relate it to the very precise legal language that they were familiar with. I think, as the GPL has gained popularity, this problem is going away. Most IP lawyers are familiar with the license now and understand how it works. Having said that, there are a whole class of programmers who believe what you have said. This is unfortunately ignorance, reinforced by decades of misinformation spread by Microsoft when they decided they needed to wage war against the GPL. As times change (and even MS has used the GPL now), this misunderstanding seems to decrease, so I don't think it is a major worry.

malandrew 11y ago

Are you at liberty to elaborate on how they interpret the GPL/LGPL differently than what you've seen elsewhere in your career?

dkarapetyan 11y ago
At liberty to elaborate always sounded like a weird phrase to me. Of course he is. As a free citizen in a free society he can speak his mind freely.
- jordigh 11y ago
  People can choose to give up that liberty by signing contracts. :-(
  - jsprogrammer 11y ago
    Not really. Do you have an example of the enforceable language you are referring to?
    - RussianCow 11y ago
      Signing an NDA takes away your liberty to disclose certain things. I'm not sure what you're trying to dispute.
      - deleted 11y ago
        [deleted]
      - jsprogrammer 11y ago
        That would depend on the nature of the language of the NDA. If you have no example language, you're right, there is nothing to dispute.
        TeMPOraL 11y ago
        That's why 'malandrew asked, "Are you at liberty to elaborate?" - in other words, "does the langauge of NDA or whatever other contract you have signed, or the risk your boss getting medieval on your ass, preclude you from elaborating?".
        jsprogrammer 11y ago
        It's a question, but unfortunately, no direct answer that can be given will really tell us about the actual language. All that can be given is someone else's interpretation of the language, which may or may not be accurate.
  - BinaryIdiot 11y ago
    Well no that doesn't technically mean he gave up his "liberty", it just means he promised not to do it at risk of being sued for breach of contract. That's all. You can't be thrown in jail for breaking an NDA.
    - ChuckMcM 11y ago
      But you can end up in bankruptcy court. And of course if you're found guilty of violating your NDA that shows up in background checks which pretty much makes you unemployable in the US (in the tech industry at least). Basically it seems kind of silly to tightly define it as "going to jail", when the practical aspects of willfully violating an NDA can ruin your life (which may or may not be worse than going to jail depending on circumstances)
      - BinaryIdiot 11y ago
        > Basically it seems kind of silly to tightly define it as "going to jail", when the practical aspects of willfully violating an NDA can ruin your life (which may or may not be worse than going to jail depending on circumstances) It was specifically referred to as your "liberty" which is incorrect. I never argued that violating an NDA could or could not result in something worse than jail time.
        emn13 11y ago
        What is liberty if not the absence of restrictions on your choices. Clearly, the repercussions described might heavily impact your liberty in that sense. (For that matter, even prisoners have some liberties...)
        jsprogrammer 11y ago
        It's near pointless arguing actual logical positions based on real definitions here. People will bring in their own assumptions and project those onto any words you use. When a logical rebuttal can't be made, some will just downmod you to bury your arguments (as you can see actually happened).
    - 11y ago
- kangman 11y ago
  he could be bound by some NDA(non-disclosure-agreements) when he left.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  They are free to speak their mind. However, they are not free from the potential consequences of doing so.
audidude 11y ago
Quite honestly, I'm more worried about inaccurately portraying their viewpoint. Most of my teams run-ins with the lawyers was LGPL related, and their interpretation of LGPL 2.1 section 6a.
- hansjorg 11y ago
  http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.en.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.en.html (removed wall off text quoting 6a, was a bit too long)
- snuxoll 11y ago
  I don't really see how 6a is open for interpretation. If you use a library licensed under LGPL2.1 or higher the user must be able to replace the library with a modified copy, this is why Mono cannot be used on iOS or Android without a commercial license. VMWare is a pretty scummy company, thankfully open source virtualization has come a long way - it's not 100% yet but oVirt does a pretty good job at replacing vCenter IMO.
  - 0x0 11y ago
    Is that true now that the latest ios/xcode combo allows anyone with an apple id to self sign most apps (those that don't require specific entitlements like push messages)? If the problem is that you have to use a new app ID and cannot seamlessly install over the existing app, how is that different from using LGPL software installed in /usr/bin on a machine where you haven't been granted root access?
    - snuxoll 11y ago
      You've always been able to do this. You could distribute your Xamarin.iOS application as source-only and require users compile it themselves without being in violation of the license, but you still cannot release it on the App Store without a commercial license (since it is impossible without jailbreaking to replace the .so).
xienze 11y ago
Everywhere I've worked, anything with the letters "G", "P", and "L" was to be avoided like toxic waste. Just too much concern about running afoul of it and having to open source the whole product.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  The GPL is a license like any other license. If you violate it, you may be sued. The result of that lawsuit would be that you would be liable to hand over an amount of money and also potentially have an injunction on further distributing your product. This is the exact same thing that would happen if you violated any other license, so there is not any additional risk to using the GPL. I think the confusion that one would have to "open source the whole project" comes from the offer that many GPL authors make to violators of their license. Very frequently, if you violate a GPL license, the author will offer to allow you to continue to use the code as long as you comply with the GPL. The author does not have to make such an offer and, in fact, this point is spelled out very clearly in the GPL itself. If you violate the license, you lose any right to use the software, unless forgiven by the author. Since many authors are not interested in suing anyone and are only interested in compliance, they make the offer anyway. Usually the offer is accepted, or the GPL code is removed from the software (there have been very, very few GPL violations that have actually gone to court). If you buy some software library from somewhere, it will also have a license for use. You are only allowed to use the software according to the license. If you use it in other ways (for example, you accidentally use it for product A, but you have only licensed it for product B), you can expect to be sued. You will have to pay some money and may have an injunction against distributing your product. It is exactly the same. I've talked with several lawyers at large tech companies that I worked with who avoided the GPL. In one particular case, they had signed an agreement to avoid the GPL (very likely with Microsoft) and were thus were obliged to forbid its use. However, in other cases, I have found the sticking point usually is in the way the agreement is made. In most software licenses, you can not run the software without agreeing to the license. With the GPL, it explicitly says that you may use the software for any purpose without accepting it. You may even modify the software and even link it to your own code. You only have to accept the license when you distribute it. For the lawyers I talked to, this was very confusing. They had never seen language like that before and were very hesitant to touch a license like it, just because they couldn't relate it to the very precise legal language that they were familiar with. I think, as the GPL has gained popularity, this problem is going away. Most IP lawyers are familiar with the license now and understand how it works. Having said that, there are a whole class of programmers who believe what you have said. This is unfortunately ignorance, reinforced by decades of misinformation spread by Microsoft when they decided they needed to wage war against the GPL. As times change (and even MS has used the GPL now), this misunderstanding seems to decrease, so I don't think it is a major worry.