Open source copyright is controversial

The Open Source OSDL organization in November established a common reference library, listing patent patterns to prevent developers from accidentally violating copyright. The OSDL director believes that the issues surrounding open source licensing will no longer be confusing and lacking.

Some companies argue that the risk of piracy of open source code is just a theoretical topic because there has never been a lawsuit against developers or infringing users ever known.

However, many people claim that such legal disputes have occurred but are always fixed through agreements in secret. To increase the credibility of this statement, the 2004 Open Source Risk Management (OSRM) conducted a study and identified 283 samples that the Linux kernel has infringed on copyright. One third of them are owned by IBM and the rest belong to other corporations, including HP and Cisco.

Research results have stirred up the LinuxWorld Conference in San Francisco (USA) last August. However, OSRM refused to publicize these 283 samples, making it difficult to verify the survey results. In contrast, OSRM believes that they cannot disclose because they only violate inadvertently and the situation will completely change when one already knows a certain form of copyright infringement.

IBM is the main supporter of Linux and has always invested in providing advisory services to customers converting to Linux. Realizing that the problem will affect Linux business, Nick Donofrio, IBM's vice president of technology and manufacturing, quickly affirmed: " I can assure you that the company has no intention of using bright patterns." Its mechanism to resist the Linux kernel ".

In January, the company announced the legal documents needed to ensure that at least 500 of their patents were not in opposition to official open source software. Sun Microsystems also pledged for 1,670 models to support the CDDL open source distribution and development certificate in February.

But the free software organization (FSF) has attacked the server maker that it is " very limited " generosity for CDDL. Like adding fuel to the fire, Sun's chief executive, Scott McNealy, said he would not extend the registered models and could not rule out the risk of Sun's patent file going against Linux inadvertently. because ' Sun committed to shareholders will promote and protect intellectual property rights '.

Sun's move has created a side effect and prolonged the debate about open code certification. Martin Fink, a major influencer for Linux under HP, asked the organization responsible for the open source OSI (Open Source Initiative) to change the approval process in February. " Adopting a certificate based on compliance with standards, rather than on the ability to influence future open-source business models, will jeopardize every open source model, " Fink said. If this is the path that OSI continues to choose, it will only lead to incompatibility and mismatch . "

The OSI has taken care of these suggestions, appointing Red Hat's CTO to be the OSI Director and currently in the research process, reforming the approval process.