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From : Sergey Lentsov 2:4615/71.10 19 Jul 2001 16:52:01
To : All
Subject : URL: http://www.lwn.net/2001/0719/
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See also: [43]last week's LWN.
Leading items and editorials
Bad relations between MySQL and NuSphere. [44]NuSphere, a subsidiary
of Progress Software, has been working over the last year to make a
living through the commercialization of the free MySQL database. To
that end, NuSphere entered into an agreement with [45]MySQL AB, the
company created by the original authors of MySQL. The actual agreement
is not public, but it involved NuSphere adding a number of high-end
features to MySQL, and the ability of NuSphere to base products on
MySQL.
The two companies have evidently not seen eye to eye for some time,
but, until recently, the dispute has been handled quietly. No more.
NuSphere has filed suit against MySQL AB for "breach of contract,
tortious interference with third party contracts and relationships and
unfair competition." The legal proceedings did not set off MySQL AB,
however, as much as NuSphere's launch of [46]MySQL.org. That site,
intended by NuSphere as a community resource independent of MySQL AB,
hit the MySQL folks a little too close to home. They greeted the site
with a strongly-worded press release entitled [47]MYSQL COMMUNITY
THREATENED BY OBSCURE .ORG WEBSITE:
Marten Mickos, newly appointed CEO of MySQL AB, commented "We
consider operating the mysql.ORG site illegal activity and we are
taking steps to enforce our trademark and other rights."
Nusphere's response, in the form of [48]a press release announcing
MySQL.org, was not a whole lot better:
MySQL.org is designed to more clearly separate church and state for
the MySQL community. Developers will not encounter licensing
demands or sales calls with MySQL.org, as they may with the
MySQL.com Web site,' said Britt Johnston, chief technology officer,
NuSphere.
Mr. Johnston was not able to provide us with any examples of
"licensing demands or sales calls" resulting from use of the MySQL.com
site.
MySQL.org, however, is just the tip of an iceberg of disputes that
includes:
* Trademark ownership. NuSphere seems to believe that it obtained
the right to use the MySQL trademark as part of its agreement with
MySQL AB; the latter company clearly disagrees - and claims to
have terminated the agreement.
* Ownership and delivery of code. MySQL AB has claimed that NuSphere
has contributed no code to the system. NuSphere disagrees, but
claims that there have been problems over MySQL AB's policy of
requiring transfer of ownership of contributed code.
* GPL violations. NuSphere has been shipping its "Gemini"
enhancements with MySQL while not making the source available;
that is a clear violation of the GPL. Since the fuss began,
NuSphere has released Gemini via MySQL.org, so that problem, for
the moment, should be resolved. NuSphere claims, though, that
MySQL's interpretation of the GPL violates that license as well.
The trademark issue has the look of something that could become a
perennial problem for the free software community. Is a piece of
software truly free if its name is not? This issue has come up before
(i.e. ssh), and will again. The desire of software authors and
companies to control the names they use is understandable, but an
excess of trademarks could make a minefield for the free software
community in the same way as software patents. This is an important
and unresolved problem.
The GPL issues are also relevant. Violations of the GPL are always a
problem, and it is good that NuSphere has, for now, moved back into
compliance. But what about NuSphere's charge against MySQL AB?
According to NuSphere CTO Britt Johnston, the company's complaint
centers around the following requirement, as seen on the [49]MySQL AB
policy page:
A [commercial] license is required if... You have a commercial
application that ONLY works with MySQL and ships the application
with the MySQL server. This is because we view this as linking even
if it is done over the network
This is the old boundary issue in a new form: what, exactly,
distinguishes "linking" from "aggregation"? That question, too, will
return to haunt us, and it may have to be resolved in court. That, of
course, would be unfortunate; judges are not necessarily well
qualified to make that kind of determination.
The real problem for MySQL users, though, could well be that people
see this dispute and decide to use a different free database system
(i.e. [50]PostgreSQL or [51]InterBase) instead. After all, if the
developers are busy fighting each other instead of hacking and claims
of licensing violations are flying, why not use another (entirely
capable) system where life appears calmer? This dispute, if it
continues, could result in a fork of the MySQL code, slowed
development, and a reduced user community. None of that would be good.
So it is encouraging to see some attempts being made to defuse the
situation. MySQL AB has published [52]an open invitation to NuSphere
to talk about and resolve the problems. [53]NuSphere's response is
(mostly) positive, and the two companies are apparently scheduled to
talk on July 20. With luck, they will manage to bring an end to a
fight that can not do either of them, or the free software community,
any good.
The DMCA strikes again. Dmitry Sklyarov came over to "the land of the
free" from Russia to speak at Defcon in Las Vegas. He was probably a
little surprised to find himself arrested by the FBI and facing
charges that could land him in prison for the next five years. The
U.S. Attorney's Office was so pleased with itself that it issued [54]a
press release proclaiming the arrest. The crime Mr. Sklyarov is
charged with is heinous indeed: he worked on a Russian commercial
software product which allows people to copy and read files in the
proprietary Adobe "eBook" format.
The eBook format allows for highly restrictive control of copyrighted
materials. It can only be processed by an Adobe eBook reader, and only
on one computer. It can not be copied, printed, or excerpted. Many of
the activities commonly seen as "fair use" are disallowed by this
format. One could argue that the "Advanced eBook Processor" simply
allows eBook customers to exercise their fair use rights. Adobe, of
course, argues that it is a "circumvention device" which must be
suppressed.
The nature of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not get much
clearer than this: write a program that interprets a proprietary file
format, and you'll go to jail. For years. It is a serious threat to
free software, and to civil liberties in the U.S. in general. Or even
outside the U.S.: Mr. Sklyarov wrote his code for a Russian company -
and the code is legal there.
Like the DVD case, this prosecution will be an important one for the
future of fair use and programming rights in the U.S. We'll be keeping
an eye on it. Meanwhile, for further information, see:
* The [55]text of the complaint against Mr. Sklyarov, in PDF format.
* A [56]list of media coverage on the Planet eBook site.
* Elcomsoft's [57]Advanced eBook Processor page.
There is also a [58]Free Sklyarov mailing list, set up by Seth David
Schoen, for those interested in following this situation.
Conferences next week. The [59]O'Reilly Open Source Convention starts
in San Diego on July 23. Numerous prominent free software developers
will be there. We'll also get to hear from Microsoft's Craig Mundie on
the joys of "shared source." It may not be the friendliest reception
he's ever encountered...
Meanwhile, the [60]Ottawa Linux Symposium starts up in, strangely
enough, Ottawa on July 25. OLS is a smaller, development-oriented
conference limited to 500 attendees. If past events are any guide,
neither highly technical talk nor beer will be lacking.
LWN will be present at both events; watch our pages for information
from the show floors.
Followup on .NET alternatives. Of course, the article [61]last week on
.NET alternatives did not manage to get them all. We're a little
embarrassed at what got left out, actually. Here's a few other
projects to look at, for those who are interested in what is happening
in this space.
* The [62]e-Speak system has been under development for a couple of
years, under heavy sponsorship from HP. e-Speak aims to bring on
"Chapter 2 of the Internet" by providing a set of protocols and
APIs for networked services to find and deal with each other.
* [63]Piper, "a peer-to-peer (P2P) distributed workflow system," was
discussed briefly in LWN back in September, 2000. The project has
kept a low profile since then, but development continues. Among
other things, it now has a [64]PiperNet Standards Organization,
and a developers meeting will be happening shortly in Denmark.
* Much of the work being done with Java over the years has had a
very similar set of goals. A look at the standards being defined
on the [65]Java Community Process site (and elsewhere) shows a
great deal of activity.
* The inclusion of the XML-RPC library in the Python 2.2 alpha
release (see [66]this week's Development page) is also aimed at
and motivated by setting and influencing standards in this area.
No doubt there are others worthy of a mention. Suffice to say the
community is not standing still and letting the new net pass it by. It
remains to be seen, however, whether any of these efforts will succeed
in establishing itself as a standard. Doing that requires more than
just a set of good technical ideas.
Inside this LWN.net weekly edition:
* [67]Security: NIST ICAT database, Bruce Schneier's congressional
testimony, Snort.
* [68]Kernel: Bouncing processes; smarter memory freeing; journaling
filesystems can be faster.
* [69]Distributions: Lots and lots of new distributions ...
* [70]On the Desktop: A better cup o' Java, KDE at LinuxTag and
guidelines to a Linux desktop.
* [71]Development: PDAs as embedded controllers, Kawada humanoid
robot, threading Java, Python 2.2a1, Jython 2.1a2, neural
networks.
* [72]Commerce: Clustering solutions from Lineo and Scyld; GNUPro
Design Tools.
* [73]History: Oracle announced support for Linux; Red Hat community
stock offering; Miguel de Icaza sez "Unix sucks".
* [74]Letters: .NET alternatives; MySQL vs. NuSphere.
...plus the usual array of reports, updates, and announcements.
This Week's LWN was brought to you by:
* [75]Jonathan Corbet, Executive Editor
* [76]Elizabeth O. Coolbaugh, Managing Editor
* [77]Michael J. Hammel, Senior Editor
July 19, 2001
[78]Click Here
[79]Click Here
[80]Next: Security
[81]Eklektix, Inc. Linux powered! Copyright Л 2001 [82]Eklektix, Inc.,
all rights reserved
Linux (R) is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds
References
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80. http://lwn.net/2001/0719/security.php3
81. http://www.eklektix.com/
82. http://www.eklektix.com/
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URL: http://www.lwn.net/2001/0719/ |
Sergey Lentsov |
19 Jul 2001 16:52:01 |
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