[Celinux-dev] How to protect intellectual property while maximizing open source usage?

[Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri]

On 9/6/06, Shawn Kwon <ksoonson at samsung.com> wrote:
> Thank you very much for your comment.
>
> > How to protect intellectual property while maximizing open source usage?
> these are mostly defined already, search for Greg KH (novell, ex-suse,
> ex-ibm) mails on this topic.
>
> --> Could you please point me some URL?
> I have seen his several comments but do not exactly
> remember regarding intellectual property.

someone have already sent you the link to his OLS presentation.
That this enough to you? I don't have any links myself, so you'd
better contact him :-)



> > 1. Should linux kernel module be released under GPL? (Simple question. J)
> They must be GPL otherwise you'd break the rules.
>
> --> There used to be several debates on that. But many vendors still
> release their kernel module under non-GPL yet. I am not saying
> that it is okay or not but just talking about the current status.
>
> I am not sure whether it is possible to make a consensus among several
> copyright holders of linux kernel module interface routine.
> AFAIK, only the copyright holder can issue a lawsuit and such a lawsuit
> is unlikely to happen. It can happen but I think the possibility is not
> very high. There have been several vendors who release non-GPL module
> but none of them has been challenged in the court yet. Again, I am not
> saying that non-GPL kernel module is okay.

Well... one can go and rewrite the entire file, thus being the new
copyright holder and thus being able to sue you... since there are
some core developers that doesn't like the non-gpl approach, you may
expect this to happen if necessary.

Read linux Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt, aside from the API
point-of-view, there is some overview why you should contribute your
code back.


> > 2. If the kernel module should be GPL, then how can I differentiate the
> > operating system-related part of my product?
> I don't get what you mean here.
> --> For example, I want to enhance linux kernel's scheduler,
> but this is a key feature of my product. Then the vendor will naturally
> try to find a way to not release this part as GPL or the competitor
> can easily get the code.

One can easily take the code, but one will not be able to use it
elsewhere without it being GPL.

Thus, if company X rip off your code and use it in his product, 1)
you'll have access to this product code or 2) you'll be able to sue
the company, and this company will have a lot of trouble against the
community. You can see the later in Linux vs Cisco, FFmpeg/Mplayer vs
player vendors... these "wars" were always favorable to free software
projects.

But if this didn't convince you, then as someone already said: don't
use linux, use BSD instead.


> > 3. How can I legally develop my application using GPL'd library with
> keeping
> > my application code proprietary?
> Again, you can't.
>
> --> Yes, that is the answer. And all the ambiguity comes from
> the vague definition on 'derivative work' in the GPL I think.
>
> HOWEVER, there are some ways to get around GPL. Basically GPL defines
> its behaviour in scope of one process and linkage time. If you write a
> IPC (Inter Process Comm.) around the library and this library itself
> is GPL or LGPL, the other process may not be GPL. You can use corba,
> dbus, dcop, tcp or other way to communicate two processes. Example:
> You can use a non-GPL browser (ie: Internet Explorer) to access a GPL
> web-server.
>
> --> We cannot simply say that wrapper library and IPC can solve
> the issue because it is quite subjective whether the two processes
> are derivative works. Socket or pipe may be used for that also
> but it is still unclear when we can say one program is/is not
> a derivative work of the other program in terms of GPL.

that's why I said you should avoid this path... but I do think no-one
will be able to sue you if you do use IPC, being the IPC wrapper GPL
or LGPL itself.


> Anyway, thank you very much for your above comments.

You're welcome. Please take some time trying to understand this new
environment and much more time planing how to have your non-tech guys
to understand that. It's a painful process at least. I would go hiring
some free software community expert guy to do some consulting. As
you're from samsung, a big company, you may wish to talk to OSDL.

-- 
Gustavo Sverzut Barbieri
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