Sunday April 10, 2005
A License for the Participation Age
UPDATE: Presentation from OSBC now available [See Appendix].
As I mentioned earlier in the week, I delivered one of the keynote speeches at the Open Source Business Conference on Tuesday. I'll provide a link to the presentation as soon as it's available. The premise of the speech was that all traditional software will ultimately go to free - not because it's lessening in value, but because an open network is eliminating the price of distribution as a barrier to entry or opportunity. Free and simple access implies a far freer market, in all senses of the word.
Since the speech, I've been deluged with input from around the world. The messages generally fall into one of a few areas. First, overwhelming support for Sun's commitment to free and open source software and the Participation Age; second, questions from those wanting to compare Sun's CDDL license with the Mozilla and GPL licenses; and third, sharp (frankly, disturbing) rebuke from those that believe the GPL should be the only software license allowed (and that dissenters should be pilloried).
So I thought I'd provide some clarifying thoughts on the evolution of Sun's CDDL, and our primary motivations. (As a preface, I'd encourage anyone with the interest to read the license. We designed it to be readable by non-lawyers, to do away with the legalese and opacity that normally surrounds software licenses.)
To date, the evolution of a considerable volume of free software has occurred without much discussion around the differing rights and obligations of the licenses (and licensees) involved. As more of the world participates in an open network, more, and more valuable IP is being created - across the globe. Which means the licenses under which IP is distributed are only increasing in importance.
With that in mind, Sun worked hard, with a global community of contributors, to build a stable license for the contribution and evolution of not only Sun's intellectual property, but all intellectual property, to the F/OSS world. At its heart are a few assumptions.
First, we assume all developers (whether nations, universities, manufacturers or software developers) want choice: a developer using OpenSolaris under the CDDL can choose to weave their own IP into an OpenSolaris or derivative distribution without any obligation to deliver their privately developed intellectual property back to Sun or their competitors. Licensees can stand on our shoulders, build derivative products based on OpenSolaris, without our hands in their pockets or business plans.
What does this mean practically? Under the CDDL, you are free to choose what to reveal, what to withhold, and how to price your products. The CDDL encourages self-determination by giving developers the basic building blocks of the entire OpenSolaris operating system without any obligation to disgorge their private property or predetermine its price. You can withhold from Sun, from the OpenSolaris community, from the world, anything you build. Or you can choose to share. It's entirely your call.
Unlike the GPL, this choice permits participants to take control of their future - to build upon the assets created by Sun and others without any future obligation. The rigidity of the GPL is what renders it incompatible with the CDDL and the Mozilla Public License - both the CDDL and MPL gladly accept the intermingling of any other source code (including GPL). And why didn't we use the MPL? For the most part, we did - we simply removed those portions that conveyed to the Mozilla Foundation the ability to revoke the license, and force any disputes to be heard in Santa Clara, California (see Section 11., which obviously doesn't work for a global market).
A second assumption was that Sun's considerable patent portfolio has enormous defensive value for the future of free and open source software - and rather than being silent on whether patents are good or bad (my answer, it depends), CDDL licensees simply inherit the full protection of Sun's portfolio. They gain that benefit through a blanket patent license, covering every software patent Sun has issued. We didn't pick an arbitrary subset of our patents to generate press. Instead, we granted a license to the entirety of our software portfolio. We attempted to encourage participation. (Separately, do I think software patents need reform? Yes. But in the interim, we put our money, and our patents, where our mouths are - and saved the community from having to sacrifice their future to support our views.)
Finally, we explicitly designed the CDDL to be a license companies and individuals could reuse. We worked hard to architect a license that wasn't just good for Sun, but was good for any entity - whether commercial or governmental - seeking to accelerate participation, without foisting our or their social or economic models on potential recipients. The CDDL is a reusable license large companies and IP holders can use to make contributions to small companies and nations, conveying the protection from multi-billion dollar patent portfolios without dictating business terms. The license preserves the rights of a licensee to run their economy and business as they see fit - without colonialistic interference or obligation.
Does this mean we don't believe in the GPL? Absolutely Not. We're one of the most prolific contributors of code under a GPL license (remember, we delivered Project Looking Glass and OpenOffice under it). But a license governing the development of a productivity application used to create documents deserves fundamentally different scrutiny than a license for infrastructure to be integrated into nascent industries or economies. And understanding the difference is crucial to preserving choice and opportunity. Just as there's no one desktop for all the world to use, there is no one operating system - and critically, there's no one license for all open source software.
Do I think there's hypocrisy on the part of large US companies encouraging usage of the GPL as a license in the developing world? Absent education and awareness related to the risks of unintentionally incorporating GPL code, yes I think it's hypocritical. Who are the largest economic beneficiaries of the GPL to date? No one disputes it, dominantly American companies.
But we all benefit from a network economy in which all nations and business can participate on an equal footing. From Sun's inception, we've always believed a rising tide lifts all boats. Just as it did with TCP/IP (the basic building block of network computing). And if there's a lesson in that history, it's that choice and competition matter. In technologies, licenses and most of all - to my friends on the extremes of the GPL community - the free exchange of ideas.
(2005-04-10 21:35:13.0) Permalink
Monday April 04, 2005
The Participation Age
I'm keynoting at the Open Source Business Conference tomorrow. Tune in, and you'll hear me talk about Sun's objectives with free and open source software: to lower the cost of computing, lower barriers to entry, and consistent with our history, fuel the communities that give rise to the next era of network computing. What's the next era? The Participation Age, in which an open and competitive network fuels growing opportunities for everyone - not simply to draw data or shift work around the world, but to participate, to create value and independence. If the Information Age was passive, the Participation Age is active.
You'll also hear me tell a couple stories that highlight a growing threat to the evolution of a participative network - duplicity working against the objectives of those most in need of assistance.
The first story relates to integrity in the world of open source. A few months ago, I was in a park over a weekend, when an individual, the CEO of an open source company, walked up and introduced himself. We got to talking, he was obviously a very smart guy. We were talking for awhile, when I began to relay my frustration surrounding Sun's (now fading) perception as 'proprietary' in the marketplace, especially among the open source community.
I told the individual that we'd been earnest in our contributions to the community, from NFS to OpenOffice, Java to OpenSolaris (Sun is by far the single largest contributor to the open source marketplace, having recently dwarfed even UC Berkeley's contributions). And we're sincere in our desire to preserve and promote standards and competition - from railroads to electricity, standards are critical to progress.
That said, we believe there is real value in intellectual property, real (if maximally defensive) value even in software patents (notwithstanding the USPTO's atrocious track record). But nonetheless, we'd been criticized for our unwillingness to allow Java to fork, for continuing our investment in the open sourcing of Solaris (while our peers dumped their OS's for Linux), and for resisting the position that software patents should be banned entirely. And most of all, we'd been roundly criticized for suggesting open source was not, and cannot be considered the equivalent of an open standard.
His advice? "Just lie. It's what a bunch of us do to keep the slashdotters at bay." If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that's not my style - and if you've been watching the headlines recently, you've seen the impact duplicity has on executives and the companies they manage.
So why are we open sourcing Solaris? To drive innovation, and eliminate the barriers to participating for those currently unable to afford the benefits of an open network (that's why the binaries are free, not just the source code). Why did we choose to author our own license, the Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), vs. use an existing one? First, because we felt the existing licenses had serious flaws - the Mozilla Public License, for example, restricts from the issuer any power to change the license, and predetermines all disputes must be heard in Santa Clara, California (not good if you're a Bolivian developer). Alternatively, the GPL expressly limits choice by disallowing the inclusion of non-GPL code into GPL projects - and exports a form of IP colonialism to nations seeking to create their own means of production.
What tack did we take? We created an open, reusable license, and contributed it back to the community. And with it, we remain consistent in our belief that intellectual property licenses exist to enforce IP models, not the political theories of a paternalistic nation or individual.
And having just spent some time with a breadth of network equipment OEM's at the GSM World Congress; and a series of representatives from developing nations at a recent customer event - I can assure you they are both suspicious of richly valued companies, with enormous patent portfolios and legal teams, evangelizing the benefits of the GPL and the elimination of software patents. They're beginning to see it as a means of forcing them to disgorge their intellectual property, and convey it to those same richly valued companies. Free software they understand: they also understand exploitation.
The second story relates to the economic motivations behind some in the world of open source. One of the most motivated folks I met recently was a venture capitalist, among the most successful in the history of the industry. He's backed a variety of household names in the IT world. And he'd begun to turn his attention to the frenzy around open source.
Over the course of our conversation, he started telling me about his efforts to encourage his portfolio companies to lobby governments to bring software patents to an end. What? Until then, my view on the elimination of software patents was that the vanguard of that position were those without the ability or wherewithal to fight against established patent aggressors. Those who could honestly look at the confusion the US has created around the proliferation of spurious patents, who sought to help others defend against potential inequity - while they built their own value.
But I'm confident an accomplished Silicon Valley VC wasn't the sympathetic constituency the European Union had in mind when it recently considered the reformation - and elimination - of software patents. Asking fledgling nations without software patent portfolios to forego the creation of defensible IP - while the wealthiest nation on earth keeps its powder dry - doesn't seem equitable or desirable. At best, the view that patents should be eliminated for everyone but the US is misguided - at worst, it's a truly cynical attempt to magnify inequities rather than destroy them.
What's my view on patents?
Remember the $92M we paid to Kodak - to resolve a legal dispute brought about by Kodak's acquisition of a patent whose exclusive value was in litigation? What is indemnity worth? Clearly something, minimally the $92M Sun paid to protect its customers and the Java community - the whole global Java community, not just those we're fond of. Companies should stand behind their products.
And having said it before, let me say it again. I believe in IP. I believe in its value, both economic and social. I believe it should be protected, as any other property, as a means of fostering independence, investment and autonomy. And not just in wealthy nations - but in those struggling to build wealth or pay down debt. I believe the creation, protection and evolution of intellectual property can accelerate everyone's ability to participate in an open network.
And that, surely, should be everyone's common goal with free and open source software. It's not about bringing the competition down, it's about driving global participation up.
(2005-04-04 23:11:46.0) Permalink
Friday April 01, 2005
Scare Tactics in the World of Open Source
Not too long ago, I was sitting on a panel at the Churchill Club moderated by John Markoff (of New York Times fame). Joining me on the panel were Charles Phillips, President of Oracle, and Dan Rosensweig, President of Yahoo!. The topics ranged from what it's like working with/around founders, how we balance work/life, leadership styles, etc.
My favorite question of the evening (and I'm planning on making the session available on my inaugural podcast, stay tuned) related to the world of free and open source software. Markoff asked something to the effect, "I was just up at Microsoft, where Bill Gates equated open source with communism. How do you respond?"
That same day, Dan had posted absolutely incredible performance at Yahoo!, delivering their first billion dollar year (in earnings, not revenue, earnings). Which gave me the perfect backdrop for my answer.
"Last I checked, Yahoo! was free. But with a billion in earnings, Dan, has anyone ever accused you of being a communist?" Dan said "Nope."
In my view, the economics of free and open source software are identical to the economics of free search, TV, radio, checking accounts or mobile phones - the money's not in the access to the product, it's in the services and value delivered around the product. The vendors of those products have a huge interest in eliminating the divide between them and their customers, one typically based on price - as a means of enabling higher value opportunities. It's a basic concept, and if you've read this blog for any length of time, you know my views on how networks and subscriptions (whether to handsets, software updates, roadside emergency services or sell-side analyst reports), over the longer term, can change price and value equations for businesses that know how to exploit them.
Now just this morning, like me, I'm sure you got an email entitled "Know the risk. Compare the protection." from Microsoft.
In it was embedded a link to an independent analyst's report, provided by the Yankee Group - which I've provided here.
I'd encourage you to read this for a view on how "open source" is misunderstood. Reading the report, you get a sense that open source is somehow irresponsible compared to Microsoft's products or approach. And moreover, that customers have to choose - open source, or safety.
Nothing could be farther from the truth - any more than "free checking" is more dangerous than paid checking, or free TV is more dangerous than cable. Solaris is being open sourced, under an OSI-approved open source license, and will be indemnified by Sun - customers do not have to succumb to the view that using open source is somehow less safe than closed source.
The critical point missed in the report is a simple one: the license or price under which a product is released to the world is entirely orthogonal to the indemnity for that product provided by its supplier - and the view that open source software is somehow more dangerous than closed source is just as misinformed as the view that customers don't need indemnity ("Since IBM is not a Linux distributor, it does not offer direct indemnification," say IBM execs.)