They are a sketch, these SCO folk. IBM did not have to say yes, but knowing SCO, they probably figured if they refused, SCO would file a motion to reconsider the previous motion's order and simultaneously file an appeal and heaven only knows what else, and we're all sick of that. Mostly IBM is, and it's probably easier to just say fine, we stipulate. They didn't care anyway, as long as it was at least 30 days.

Someday we'll find out what this was all about. It wasn't just about being ornery, I don't think. It smells more like some strategy playing out, but we don't have enough information yet to figure out what they were each looking for. In any case, IBM won, that's for sure, despite SCO's spinning opening line, which kind of comes across to me like SCO is thumbing its nose at the judge.

My thanks to the wonderful Steve Martin for already providing the text for us.

Mayfield showed respect to the process, acknowledged that a project using it couldn't be viewed as Open Source unless or until it was approved by OSI, and modified his license language until it could be. Specifically, the attribution language was taken from the Adaptive Public License, which was already an OSI-approved license, and as you will see, the new license is practically identical, so there is no big change at OSI, and no, this is not the first attribution license to be OSI-approved. Even GPLv3 allows you to require attribution, after all. I'll show you the SugarCRM license and contrast it with the OSI-approved CPAL license requirements, so you can see the difference.

"We are proud to adopt the GPL V3 with our next major Sugar Community Edition release," said John Roberts, CEO and co-founder of SugarCRM Open Source Project. "We would like to thank the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for leading such an important effort to deliver the most modern FOSS license. The FSF undertook a very difficult process and incorporated many diverse developer and user needs and combined them into a fair and just representation of what FOSS means to our communities."

This resolves some issues in a very pleasant way. Why did they do it? Their GPLv3 FAQ page explains:

SugarCRM believes the GPL v3 will become the standard for all open source licenses, and wanted to get a head start on adopting that standard.

I agree with their assessment, and I'm very excited by this news. Sometimes the media misunderstands the openness and frankness of conversations in the FOSS community when issues arise, imagining it means the community is breaking apart. It doesn't. It means it's functioning, and as a result, things get worked through.

We have *got* to do a new T shirt, methinks.

It means I get to be listed in the Hall of Fame page. "The Google-O'Reilly Open Source Awards have been presented to individuals for dedication, innovation, leadership and outstanding contribution to open source." This feels so good. It's truly a wonderful thing to know that work you love doing is in fact appreciated by the very people you wish to please the most.

So thank you so much for this honor, Google and O'Reilly committee members. It is very meaningful to me. This was the first year they had an open submissions process, so perhaps I should also thank whoever thought of me. It could even be one of you. Of course, Groklaw isn't just me. If it were, it'd be very different, and so I want to thank all of you who have contributed -- and continue to contribute through thick and thin, year after year -- to this sustained community effort.

I knew we could do this. I just knew. Thank you for making the dream come true. O'Reilly has the news up now too. They call our work "tremendous". Thank you. OSCON is still live by the way, and we will be having reports for you as time goes by.

Linux Foundation Names Markus Rex as Chief Technology Officer

SAN FRANCISCO ? July, 24, 2007 - The Linux Foundation (LF), the nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the growth of Linux , today announced that Markus Rex, a long-time Linux executive at SUSE Linux AG and Novell, will serve as chief technology officer at the Foundation. Rex, who will be on loan to the Linux Foundation from Novell, has been a leading proponent of Linux standardization throughout his career and brings strong Linux technical leadership to the role. As the Linux Foundation’s CTO, Rex will help drive new standardization and technical initiatives around Linux and promote Linux adoption more broadly.
?We’re extremely thrilled to have Markus Rex join our management team. Rex has been a leader in the Linux industry since the early days of Linux, having joined SUSE Linux AG in 1999 and making it one of the leading commercial distributions on the market today,? said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation. ?We appreciate Novell’s willingness to lend its technical and financial support to the community with this initiative and hope it serves as a model for the future. Much like open source development itself, this unique approach allows us to neutrally leverage talented personnel from the Linux ecosystem for the greater benefit of Linux Foundation members. ?
As CTO, Rex will lead all technical initiatives for the Linux Foundation, including oversight of the Linux Standard Base and other workgroups such as Open Printing. He will also be the primary technical interface to LF members and the LF’s Technical Advisory Board who represent the kernel community. Upon completion of his tenure at the Linux Foundation, currently slated for end 2008, Rex will return to Novell.
?By unifying the resources of the greater Linux ecosystem, the Linux Foundation provides crucial standardization, promotion and collaboration services for the continued advancement of Linux,? Rex said. ?I look forward to working with members of the community and the Linux Foundation to ensure that the promise of Linux is delivered. We’re at a very exciting time for the Linux market, and I’m pleased to be able to contribute to the Linux Foundation’s work.?
Rex has a long history of strategy and product management in the Linux arena. He joined Novell in February 2004 with Novell’s acquisition of SUSE Linux AG. At Novell, he has served as vice president and general manager for SUSE Linux, CTO for the Open Platform Solutions Group, and most recently as vice president of services strategy. He joined SUSE Linux AG in 1999, serving as head of development and later as vice president of research and development, where he oversaw SUSE’s growth from 15 engineers in 1999 to more than 200 in 2004. Rex has previously served as a board member to the Free Standards Group and the Linux Foundation. Prior to joining SUSE, Rex worked in the department of Computer Science at the University of Erlangen and as an IT consultant at Philips in Prague.
The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms. The Linux Foundation offers application developers standardization services and support that make Linux an attractive target for their development efforts. These include the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and the Linux Developer Network. All major Linux distributions comply with the LSB. The Linux Foundation also manages the Linux trademark. The Foundation serves as a neutral forum to advance the interests of Linux and fosters innovation by hosting collaborative events among the Linux technical community, application developers, industry and end users to solve pressing issues facing the Linux ecosystem.
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is a nonprofit consortium dedicated to fostering the growth of Linux. Founded in 2007, the Linux Foundation sponsors the work of Linux creator Linus Torvalds and is supported by leading Linux and open source companies and developers from around the world. The Linux Foundation promotes, protects and standardizes Linux by providing unified resources and services needed for open source to successfully compete with closed platforms. For more information, please visit www.linux-foundation.org.

Andalusia's story begins on the day before the technical committee was to meet in Spain to discuss whether or not to accept Microsoft's OOXML as an ISO standard. All the members of the committee received a letter from Microsoft. Attached were some letters, which Microsoft characterized as supporting a yes vote on OOXML. One of the letters was a letter [PDF, Spanish] from the government of Andalusia, which indeed spoke of the importance of open formats. It wasn't an endorsement of OOXML as a technical specification now or ever, it has now clearly announced, stating that it is profoundly disturbed by what has happened and writes its letter of protest to clarify where it stands.

It's worse than Novell's, actually. It's worse than Tivo, in my book. I know some say that Tivo doesn't interfere with you modifying, as long as you give up using the modified software on Tivo hardware. To me, that is a penalty not contemplated by GPLv2, because if you buy a Tivo, it's because you wanted to use the software with the Tivo hardware, but with Linspire's agreement, you have to give up pretty much all your GPL freedoms, as far as I can make out, and more. And what do you get in return for giving up everything? True Type fonts, Windows Media 10, DVD playback, patent coverage...

Here's what you can't do without losing Microsoft's promise not to sue you. You can't share the software with others, pass it on with the patent promise, modify your own copy, or even use it for an "unauthorized" purpose, whatever that means in a software context. You must pay Linspire for the software, but then the "covenant" says to use Linux, you must also pay Microsoft. That payment doesn't cover upgrades. Linspire said it was absorbing the initial fees, but I don't know about upgrades. New functionality means you lose your coverage or presumably must pay again.

It doesn't cover a lot of types of software, most especially not business applications. It covers Linspire Five-0. That's it. It doesn't cover anything running on a server. It doesn't cover clone or foundry products or "other excluded products", according to Microsoft's definitions, which I'll show you, even if you get them from Linspire, and of course it doesn't cover GPLv3 anything. Freespire isn't covered, nor are apps you get separately from CNR that you don't pay for. Microsoft can change the deal or even drop it any time they are good and ready, but Linspire can't. And of course, you are not consulted. Microsoft can interrogate you any time it thinks it necessary to make sure you really are covered. But there is no clear list. I see no arrangement for resolving disputes.

Here's what you can still do: just sit there and don't make any sudden moves. Pretend you are using Microsoft software instead of GPL'd software. Don't think. Don't modify. Don't share. Don't explore. Don't improve. Don't innovate. Don't distribute. Don't sublicense. Don't do "unauthorized" things. Don't do nuttin' or you might get sued.

What was Linspire thinking? You think I'm kidding, don't you? Let me show you.

While we wait, there is more on that front, this time from India, where the technical committee there is still considering Ecma-376 issues. Earlier, we mentioned to you some questions that Dr. G. Nagarjuna, Chairman FSF India, submitted to the Working Committee, Board of Indian Standards on Wordprocessing. In this Issue Sheet [PDF], we find answers from Microsoft's Vijay Kapur, followed by responses from Dr. Nagarjuna.

As you know, it's been reported that both Sun and IBM were told there was no room for them to join the committee in Portugal and so they were not allowed to attend the July 16th meeting. A member of that committee, Rui Seabra, has now published his notes from the meeting and given me permission to reproduce them here for you. As you will see, he seems to have had some difficulty being heard; he confirms the Sun/IBM exclusion and shows that it doesn't seem to have any defensible basis; and when you read the technical discussion, I think you will be shocked.

Essentially, they say they don't want the deadlines changed to hit simultaneously with the Novell trial, which is understandable, but they don't object to IBM's idea of setting the deadlines for after the Novell trial, and they tell the court that they will try to get with IBM and work out a schedule that is mutually agreeable. That of course is exactly what IBM says in its motion it tried to do already. So stay tuned to see if they can agree on dates.

The very latest is that the court has signed [PDF] the stipulated adjustments the parties proposed to the pre-trial schedule in Novell, there was a SCO status report [PDF] filed in Red Hat and here's Red Hat's latest [PDF], and there was a goofed up filing in IBM, where SCO filed its memorandum in opposition to Novell's evidentiary objections (2nd objections; Novell reply to SCO) in the IBM docket by mistake, and IBM has asked for a 30-day extension of various pretrial scheduled items. But now, let's look at the overview to see how they all interrelate, and I'll also try to give you a picture of what trial preparation in Novell is probably like right about now.

Remember, too, that IBM still controls one of the world's Big Four operating systems - there's Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, Linux, and, that's right, Unix. (SCO has licenses -- and misused them wildly in its lawsuits against Linux - but the courts have agreed that the intellectual property belongs to IBM.)

It's a happy thought, IBM owning Unix, but impossible of fulfillment. Of course, he may indeed prove himself to be a true prophet in predicting SCO's loss in a back-to-the-future kind of way, but I think there is zero chance that IBM will be declared the owner of Unix. That might be Novell's happy lot, but not IBM's. IBM is a licensee, not a copyright holder or even a copyright claimant. It's Novell and SCO that are in the dispute about who owns the copyrights to Unix. As for the IBM litigation, no one knows any more what it's about, because SCO keeps moving the pea under the walnut shells.

No, dear InformationWeek, the trial hasn't happened yet. You could easily have checked that right here on Groklaw, if you didn't want to call IBM or SCO. Just shoot me an email any old time, or look it up in our Timeline pages. That's what they are there for. We'll help you get it right, even if you aren't a fan of FOSS. It's a serious offer. Here's the latest, by the way, IBM asking [PDF] for a 30-day extension of time on some remaining deadlines. They say they don't even care if the court wishes to set them after the Novell trial. Update 2: InformationWeek has now corrected the article, and its author left an honorable explanation as a comment to this article.