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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Rickard Oberg has created "TheJBossIssue" blog, saying "This blog will document the trademark and licensing issues associated with JBoss Inc. and its projects. This blog is a combined effort of individuals and companies who have been affected by the actions of JBoss Inc. on these issues."The use of trademarks, which in the case of "JBoss" covers both the product and any related services, to stifle competition is a practice which very much defeats the purpose of OpenSource and FOSS, and is designed to create a monopoly situation whereby only JBoss Inc. and partners can offer such services, coupled with a pricing strategy that is quite aggressive and far from "free". Even most commercial vendors do not limit service companies to use the name of products to offer services, but somehow JBoss Inc. feels that this is a viable way to gain a business advantage. OpenSource is supposed, I believe, to be about collaboration and fair competition, not about who happened to get the trademark registrated first. It's not good for customers, and it is not good for the overall business ecology. What do you think?
Editor's note: TSS is neither endorsing nor disputing Mr. Oberg's claims. Our feeling is that such claims are in and of themselves newsworthy, given the historical views - both pro and con - about JBoss on this site. As such, we are merely attempting to report that this news has been presented and not taking a stance otherwise about it. Mr. Oberg has made similar claims in the past, and there's a visible animosity that should be taken into account when reading things like this.
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Message #187259
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Waiting for Geronimo
I don't think one needs to spend a lot of energy on this. JBoss unfortunately missed the whole point of open source, and even its mechanics. Unfortunately for the creators it has the image of proprietary software but without the revenue ..
Can anyone out there relate their experiences using Geronimo so far? I have been waiting for it to mature and it seems to be doing that very quickly.
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Message #187261
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Am I able to use JBoss.. ops... That name, on my resume?
Am I able to use JBoss.. ops... That name, on my resume?
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Message #187264
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Waiting for Geronimo
Unfortunately for the creators it has the image of proprietary software but without the revenue .. Well, I have never had my intelligence insulted by IBM or any IBM:ers for no reason whatsoever..
Can anyone out there relate their experiences using Geronimo so far? That would be interesting to know: What is Geronimos roadmap to production-readiness?
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Message #187265
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
I'm not a big fan of JBoss but this seems to be little bit of "sour grapes" on Rickard's part.
Fine, people don't like JBoss et. al. but unless Rickard is an attorney, he should refrain from libel that this or that is illegal. If the facts support his concerns, take it to court.
I believe Rickard chose not to open source his company's Portal software because of IP concerns. And yet now he blogs as a champion of LGPL and FOSS?
From the complaints mentioned, a lot of code that is LGPL falls under the same problems. IANAL but I have sat in on Fortune 500 legal meetings where LGPL is not a welcome topic. And before the flames wars come out, it's not because it's good or bad it's because it is too susceptible to "I can argue that..." problem which makes decision makers nervous.
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Message #187266
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Issue of displaying copyright
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library.
This section of the LGPL says that you have to redistribute as you receive, provided you display the copyright on each copy. Now what happens if a source file doesn't have a copyright notice? IANAL, but I would guess there are two likely answers:
1) The license is null and void. And since there is no copyright, you can copy it as much as you like :(
2) The source files are not required to display a copyright notice. One file saying "The copyright of the source files herein is owned by their respective owners" or something like that. If you notice, the license doesn't say that you for 5,000 files you have to have copyright notices, or that you have to say who the owners are.
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Message #187267
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Waiting for Geronimo
Well, I have never had my intelligence insulted by IBM or any IBM:ers for no reason whatsoever..
I didn't get this part - please explain.
That would be interesting to know: What is Geronimos roadmap to production-readiness?
Hey, I'm still waiting to hear that JBoss got these two features:
1) Recovery log
2) TCP/IP multiplexing
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Message #187269
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Waiting for Geronimo
I didn't get this part - please explain. Merely stating that I have not seen any IBM or BEA employees insult potential clients, partners or developers in public forums.
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Message #187270
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Apache have naming rules too
Before you decide to switch to Geronimo based purely on JBoss's naming policy, can I point out to you that Apache 2.0 license says :
6. Trademarks. This License does not grant permission to use the trade names, trademarks, service marks, or product names of the Licensor, except as required for reasonable and customary use in describing the origin of the Work and reproducing the content of the NOTICE file.
Which means you can say "apache geronimo, Apache Xerces, Apache Axis", but you had better be using it to describe the product, and not something else like "Apache Geronimo Consultants", or you may find some attention and email heading your way.
Does this happen? Not very often. But I note that IBM are paying sourceforge many $$ to put Geronimo placements on their site. If you go to the home page right now, you see a ref to the "IBM Apache Geronimo Challenge", which is actually a link to the "IBM-sponsored Apache geronimo challenge". It may be an accident, but it may be that IBM have chosen to sail very close to the wind on this itemand we (putting my apache hat on), may have to get this corrected.
Dont worry about trademarks; redhat are strict there too. Worry about product quality, community, and whether it meets your needs or whether the source can be tuned to meet those needs.
-Steve
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Message #187274
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Enough already
I am so sick of seeing this theme repeated on TSS again and again!
Move on already!
ps:I am neither a Jboss employee nor a Jboss user.
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Message #187276
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- just boycott JBOSS
JBOSS = bunch of arrogant monkeys.
Wait for Geronimo or go with very good but cheap app server like Pramati or Resin = fraction of what IBM or BEA will charge you and actually work very well.
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Message #187279
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Oh, yes: product quality
Dont worry about trademarks; redhat are strict there too. Worry about product quality, community, and whether it meets your needs or whether the source can be tuned to meet those needs.-Steve
Does that mean that JBoss now has a transaction recovery log?
How about TCP/IP multiplexing?
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Message #187280
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
This is cool and funny until someone creates "TheObergIssue."
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Message #187281
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Namemarks too??
Oh, Steve, I didn't know that Marc has changed his name to JBOSS - did he? ;)
Wouldn't it be better to discus the case and not the people?
For me it looks like the opposite of what the philosophy of open source was ment to be. There's nothing against earning money, but - I beg Your pardon - things like that have for me a very soure taste!
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Message #187283
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Getting Things Done
I read David Allen's book Getting Things Done and had a plan for being more productive and yet I find myself sitting here reading the transcript to a Jerry Springer show.
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Message #187284
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- just boycott ...
JBOSS = bunch of arrogant monkeys. As a general observation: I do not recall from the history when somebody creative much less an inventor was a nice person.
It does not mean that every jerk is a genius of course…
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Message #187286
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- just boycott ...
JBOSS = bunch of arrogant monkeys. As a general observation: I do not recall from the history when somebody creative much less an inventor was a nice person. It does not mean that every jerk is a genius of course…
Actually a few come to my mind without much of a mind strech
Farad, Newton, Albert Einstein and they were very social although a bit eccentric.
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Message #187287
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- just boycott JBOSS
JBOSS = bunch of arrogant monkeys.
Wait for Geronimo or go with very good but cheap app server like Pramati or Resin = fraction of what IBM or BEA will charge you and actually work very well.
FFS, put some meat behind your comments. Unlike some of the other vendors, every software that JBoss has out there is accessible to anyone. You're not paying 10,000 dollars per processor *just* to install. The company is made up of people that have stepped beyond the corporate infrastructure in a maverick fashion and has made a point to share their ideas with everyone via open source. So yeah, some of them have attitudes but but these are programmers, not marketing or sales people. I have to disagree with some of the comments their programmers have made in the past but at the same time, these guys are very passionate about what their doing, so constant berating from people like Rick would probably piss you off too.
-- Jacob
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Message #187288
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- just boycott JBOSS
JBOSS = bunch of arrogant monkeys.Wait for Geronimo or go with very good but cheap app server like Pramati or Resin = fraction of what IBM or BEA will charge you and actually work very well. FFS, put some meat behind your comments. Unlike some of the other vendors, every software that JBoss has out there is accessible to anyone. You're not paying 10,000 dollars per processor *just* to install. The company is made up of people that have stepped beyond the corporate infrastructure in a maverick fashion and has made a point to share their ideas with everyone via open source. So yeah, some of them have attitudes but but these are programmers, not marketing or sales people. I have to disagree with some of the comments their programmers have made in the past but at the same time, these guys are very passionate about what their doing, so constant berating from people like Rick would probably piss you off too.-- Jacob
Even if you dont spend anyhting on installing jboss, you will spend more than 10K on their services. And hey if you charge people so high for your services get a good marketing / sales force to support your jerk programmers.
Also programmers arent always bad mannered as you think.
I m sure a lot of people on TSS are good programmers - but doesnt mean they dont take bath or drink ton of coke everyday and dont have a date on friday night. Thats not the right image. So please just dont get stuck with that wrong image. Things have moved past that. Lets just be realistic. Also RESIN or PRAMATI really dont cost that much and their servie level is way better than IBM/BEA. I have seen it first hand in a 5th largest bank in the US.
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Message #187292
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- just boycott JBOSS
JBOSS = bunch of arrogant monkeys.Wait for Geronimo or go with very good but cheap app server like Pramati or Resin = fraction of what IBM or BEA will charge you and actually work very well. FFS, put some meat behind your comments. Unlike some of the other vendors, every software that JBoss has out there is accessible to anyone. You're not paying 10,000 dollars per processor *just* to install. The company is made up of people that have stepped beyond the corporate infrastructure in a maverick fashion and has made a point to share their ideas with everyone via open source. So yeah, some of them have attitudes but but these are programmers, not marketing or sales people. I have to disagree with some of the comments their programmers have made in the past but at the same time, these guys are very passionate about what their doing, so constant berating from people like Rick would probably piss you off too.-- Jacob
To Rickard's point, this isn't just about licensing. It's about the Astroturfing episode + this new trademark enforcement issue + the licensing. That's a lot of meat...
Eric
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Message #187293
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- just boycott ...
Actually a few come to my mind without much of a mind strech Farad, Newton, Albert Einstein and they were very social although a bit eccentric. I wonder how a measurement unit can be social and essentric ;-)
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Message #187298
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be respectful
.. from people like Rick ..
-- Jacob
Jacob (not Jake, Jack, etc.),
His name is Rickard, not Rick. Try to be respectful, even if you disagree with someone. It's a lesson we can all learn, as I was reminded by someone this week.
Peace,
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol Coherence: This space available.
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Message #187299
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- just boycott JBOSS
IMHO Eric Stahl is absolutely right to point to the real content / intention of Rickard's blog.
It is less his personal experience with them, more what they are about to do or might do. Read carefully what is written there and don't see it as "just the same old story".
This should be of general interest, for everyone making decisions, contributing code or whatever.
What I expected in this case as well is a clarification of the FSF / FSF Europe about the license and copyright issues.
And to be honest, I personally disagree with the tone a few in here are using.
Matthias
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Message #187300
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob, not to be rude, but can you clarify your relationship with JBoss?
This is the second thread this week where you have been one of the most vocal JBoss apologists.
Just wondering if sticking up for JBoss in the forums is part of the application process ;-)
FFS, put some meat behind your comments. Unlike some of the other vendors, every software that JBoss has out there is accessible to anyone. You're not paying 10,000 dollars per processor *just* to install. The company is made up of people that have stepped beyond the corporate infrastructure in a maverick fashion and has made a point to share their ideas with everyone via open source. So yeah, some of them have attitudes but but these are programmers, not marketing or sales people. I have to disagree with some of the comments their programmers have made in the past but at the same time, these guys are very passionate about what their doing, so constant berating from people like Rick would probably piss you off too.-- Jacob
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Message #187301
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Namemarks too??
Oh, Steve, I didn't know that Marc has changed his name to JBOSS - did he? ;)Wouldn't it be better to discus the case and not the people?For me it looks like the opposite of what the philosophy of open source was ment to be. There's nothing against earning money, but - I beg Your pardon - things like that have for me a very soure taste!
That's your right to say. That's all I was saying. We all have a right to say anything we want. <shrug> Obviously you can't yell fire in a movie theater and one should avoid slander and libel, but freedom of speech always works both ways. Lord help me if I ever get important enough for someone to bring out my dirty laundry. Luckily, I'm not important, and I won't ever be.
I don't work for JBoss, we use JBoss but that's it. <shrug> But you have the freedom to imply that I do, and that's okay.
Steve
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Message #187302
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- just boycott ...
Actually a few come to my mind without much of a mind strech
Farad, Newton, Albert Einstein and they were very social although a bit eccentric. Who is Farad? I always understood Newton to be a big jerk. Just ask Leibniz.
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Message #187303
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob, not to be rude, but can you clarify your relationship with JBoss?This is the second thread this week where you have been one of the most vocal JBoss apologists. Just wondering if sticking up for JBoss in the forums is part of the application process ;-)
If you want the honest truth, a couple companies recently approached me with offers, but I turned them down (you can verify that with whomever). Sharp observation :-)
I'm not going to deny that I'm apothetic to JBoss, but I've also been just as vocal with Sun and other vendors. For me, it's not about the company, but the product-- so one week I may talk about how great Oracle ADF is, or how great JSF is, or how much I hate AOP, etc-- :-)
-- Jacob
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Message #187304
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- just boycott JBOSS
And, FWIW, Oracle wasn't one of those companies, so his ADF Faces plugs are completely unbiased. All I ever give Jacob is grief. :)
-- Adam Winer
Oracle Corp.
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Message #187305
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- just boycott JBOSS
Unlike some of the other vendors, every software that JBoss has out there is accessible to anyone. You're not paying 10,000 dollars per processor *just* to install.
This is an incorrect statement. Most of application server vendors (at least Oracle) do not charge anything for just installing their software. Most vendors offer free download for evaluation/development use. Oracle's application server is free for development and you have to pay only when you deploy any production applications. So there is no difference between JBoss service fee (you buy when you deploy a mission critical app) and paying for license plus support for a commercial application server.
We are seeing customers choose Oracle over JBoss because the support cost for JBoss for three years was much more than license plus support cost for Oracle Application Server. Obviously JBoss is not as inexpensive as people are led to believe"
Just my 2 cents
-Debu Panda
http://debupanda.com
P.S. This is just my opinion and not attributed to my employer (Oracle)
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Message #187306
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- just boycott JBOSS
Unlike some of the other vendors, every software that JBoss has out there is accessible to anyone. You're not paying 10,000 dollars per processor *just* to install. This is an incorrect statement.
....
P.S. This is just my opinion and not attributed to my employer (Oracle)
See, this is why I stay unaffiliated :-D
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Message #187307
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- just boycott ...
Actually a few come to my mind without much of a mind strech Farad, Newton, Albert Einstein and they were very social although a bit eccentric. Who is Farad? I always understood Newton to be a big jerk. Just ask Leibniz.
Michael Faraday - who invented electricity :)
Farad is the unit used for his name
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Message #187309
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Jboss Trademarked to Fleury????
I read this blog and I was surprised to find out that JBoss is trademarked to the individual Mark Fleury? Is this true?
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Message #187312
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob,
Thanks for the clarification. Someone pointed out to me that they thought my question was rude, so I'm glad you didn't take it that way. I was just curious as I haven't seen you backing JBoss in these forums before and I was wondering what had changed.
Curious again, why do you hate AOP?
Jacob, not to be rude, but can you clarify your relationship with JBoss?This is the second thread this week where you have been one of the most vocal JBoss apologists. Just wondering if sticking up for JBoss in the forums is part of the application process ;-) If you want the honest truth, a couple companies recently approached me with offers, but I turned them down (you can verify that with whomever). Sharp observation :-)I'm not going to deny that I'm apothetic to JBoss, but I've also been just as vocal with Sun and other vendors. For me, it's not about the company, but the product-- so one week I may talk about how great Oracle ADF is, or how great JSF is, or how much I hate AOP, etc-- :-)-- Jacob
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Message #187313
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- just boycott ...
Actually a few come to my mind without much of a mind strech Farad, Newton, Albert Einstein and they were very social although a bit eccentric. Who is Farad? I always understood Newton to be a big jerk. Just ask Leibniz.
Michael Faraday - who invented electricity :)Farad is the unit used for his name
I think he discovered it. This sub-thread is dangerously unnecessary ... :)
Hey, I wonder if they fixed TSS. I am not experiencing any more problems now.
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Message #187314
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob,Thanks for the clarification. Someone pointed out to me that they thought my question was rude, so I'm glad you didn't take it that way. I was just curious as I haven't seen you backing JBoss in these forums before and I was wondering what had changed.Curious again, why do you hate AOP?
Heheh, no problem, it's the 'Minnesota nice' :-)
With JBoss, I recently contributed some ideas with JBoss Seam and chatted quite a bit with some of those folks and got to understand them a bit better and where they wanted to take the Java platform, I have to respect them for it.
I write code, just like many other people do, in my free time. So I'm on cloud 9 that my ideas and frameworks are making their way into other projects, just as I'm sure you are with your work. It's a cycle, you get people interested in your project and others take that initiative into other projects/frameworks, it's like a flame-- or napalm as Adam Winer had commented to me-- leading to the inside joke, "I love the smell of user lists in the morning"
AOP, I don't want to go there ;-)
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Message #187318
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Issue of displaying copyright
First off, everything I'm going to say is based on my understand of the current status of U.S. copyright law. IANAL but will provide links which back up my point of view.
You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and distribute a copy of this License along with the Library.
This section of the LGPL says that you have to redistribute as you receive, provided you display the copyright on each copy. Now what happens if a source file doesn't have a copyright notice? IANAL, but I would guess there are two likely answers:
1) The license is null and void. And since there is no copyright, you can copy it as much as you like :
Copyright attaches automatically upon creation of the work. There is no need to add a copyright notice. See http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#mywork.
Licensing a copyrighted work is a seperate issue. If the license was found to be invalid then the work would revert to regular copyright law and that means no one except the original author (or their successor) can distribute the work.
(2) The source files are not required to display a copyright notice. One file saying "The copyright of the source files herein is owned by their respective owners" or something like that. If you notice, the license doesn't say that you for 5,000 files you have to have copyright notices, or that you have to say who the owners are.
What you're saying in 2 is correct. The LGPL does not require (nor does copyright law require, as I posted for 1) a statement of copyright in each individual file. The LGPL is explicit about this by saying that the "Library" must contain a copy of the license.
It is, however, standard practice for many organizations to place copyright notices in every file since it helps maintain a record of what files they created themselves versus files licensed from a third party, but it is not mandatory.
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Message #187319
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Denial?
I truly cannot understand how someone could be so in denial of their real and PR problems. To me, the true measure of this company's maturity is the degree at which they decide to put their business and customers before the staff's personal feelings and impulses.
Hopefully external dependencies such as the ownership of trademarks won't keep the company from exploring all necessary avenues of discussion.
I just don't get it. They have a good position, a fair brand, a generally reasonable technical platform and plenty of opportunities through the lively community. Why screw that up with petty stuff like trolling on TSS when they could win hugely simply by stopping the negative campaigns?
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Message #187320
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
I don't know why Rickard feels the need to attack JBoss but he could, at the very least, use some relevant arguements.
1. The issue has with the licensing status is a complete non-starter. The LGPL requires that the "Library" contain a copyright notice and licensing information (see Section 1 of the LGPL). It does not require that on a file by file basis. If this is a problem then it affects most of the large open source projects which don't require copyright assignment. For example, go take a look at the Linux source code and try and find a copyright notice from everyone who has ever contributed.
I think that Rickard got this odd idea of licensing in a thread that occurred fairly recently and several people including myself tried to explain that he was incorrect. Unfortunately he choose to ignore us and go public with such completley rediculous accusations.
Since he got the basis of his arguement that JBoss is improperly using the LGPL it invalidates his arguments that JBoss has no license and cannot be distributed.
2. The trademark issue has nothing to do with open source. The open source definition doesn't mention trademarks. The LGPL even explicitly says "[a]ctivities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
covered by this License; they are outside its scope." There is nothing about open source which somehow magically gives you the rights to use the name of the project, it gives you the rights to the souce code of the project. Go and take a look at the trademark rules for other large open source projects:
Red Hat: http://www.redhat.com/en_us/USA/home/company/companyprofile/trademark/
Fedora: http://fedora.redhat.com/about/trademarks/
MySQL: http://www.mysql.com/company/legal/trademark.html
Debian: http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.debian.org/News/1998/19980306a&e=9797
OpenOffice.org: http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/summary.html
You will find if that very few open source projects will let you use their trademarks. Why? Because trademark law explicitly requires you to defend your trademark or you could lose it (http://www.methvenlaw.com/n_tmark.htm). Red Hat has sent cease and desist letters to CentOS for using the Red Hat mark. Even Linus Torvalds has enforced the trademark on Linux.
For the record, I'm not a lawyer but I can certainly read plain, straightforward English. And the arguments which are expressed on that blog seem to trying to stretch that straightforward English to the very breaking point to attempt to discredit JBoss.
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Message #187321
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Sure, it is sour.
Ok, I can understand if someone posts these kinds of things to their own blog, but to create a dedicated website for it is a bit much.
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Message #187323
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Hey Bill, here's another one who is "scared shitless" of JBOSS :)
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Message #187324
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Get a life
C'mon Oberg, get over it. This personal thing you have with Fleury is getting out of control, invading your life. Move on, make a girlfriend, have kids.
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Message #187325
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be respectful
Oh, thanks for the reminder, Cameron, you old wise guy... What the hell is this post about? Do you absolutely need to leave the link to your web site all over the place? Man...
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Message #187328
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob is now currently frantically groping Gavin's genitalia over Seam, so obviously he'll be desperate to get into Fleury panties.
Mind you, he's always been one of the two (along with rickIloveshinyobjectsalmostasmuchasdionower) JSF advocates because he has a book or framework that depends on it, so that sort of explains his sudden love for anyone who even looks at JSF with any degree of sexual curiosity.
Way to go Jacob, you've destroyed any credibility you might have ever had. This leaves exactly one non-retarded JSF person in the world; Kito Mann. No doubt he'll soon post something that proves he's as braindamaged as the rest of you POST spastics.
Just be grateful that marketoids rule the world, or people like you wouldn't even merit being spat on as yet another homeless twat on the java sidewalk.
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Message #187334
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Jboss Trademarked to Fleury????
I read this blog and I was surprised to find out that JBoss is trademarked to the individual Mark Fleury? Is this true?
Yap. Since way before the founding of Jboss Inc. I believe it was done when Marc founded Telkel (the JBoss services company he founded before JBoss inc that flopped - mainly because the market wasn't ready and not so much on his personal fault, I believe), or somewhere wround those dates.
Hugo
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Message #187335
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob is now currently frantically groping Gavin's genitalia over Seam, so obviously he'll be desperate to get into Fleury panties.Mind you, he's always been one of the two (along with rickIloveshinyobjectsalmostasmuchasdionower) JSF advocates because he has a book or framework that depends on it, so that sort of explains his sudden love for anyone who even looks at JSF with any degree of sexual curiosity.Way to go Jacob, you've destroyed any credibility you might have ever had. This leaves exactly one non-retarded JSF person in the world; Kito Mann. No doubt he'll soon post something that proves he's as braindamaged as the rest of you POST spastics.Just be grateful that marketoids rule the world, or people like you wouldn't even merit being spat on as yet another homeless twat on the java sidewalk.
You are a strange little man.
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Message #187336
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob is now currently frantically groping Gavin's genitalia over Seam, so obviously he'll be desperate to get into Fleury panties.Mind you, he's always been one of the two (along with rickIloveshinyobjectsalmostasmuchasdionower) JSF advocates because he has a book or framework that depends on it, so that sort of explains his sudden love for anyone who even looks at JSF with any degree of sexual curiosity.Way to go Jacob, you've destroyed any credibility you might have ever had. This leaves exactly one non-retarded JSF person in the world; Kito Mann. No doubt he'll soon post something that proves he's as braindamaged as the rest of you POST spastics.Just be grateful that marketoids rule the world, or people like you wouldn't even merit being spat on as yet another homeless twat on the java sidewalk.
Hani,
You are a strange little man.
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Message #187337
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob, not to be rude, but can you clarify your relationship with JBoss?This is the second thread this week where you have been one of the most vocal JBoss apologists. Just wondering if sticking up for JBoss in the forums is part of the application process ;-)FFS, put some meat behind your comments. Unlike some of the other vendors, every software that JBoss has out there is accessible to anyone. You're not paying 10,000 dollars per processor *just* to install. The company is made up of people that have stepped beyond the corporate infrastructure in a maverick fashion and has made a point to share their ideas with everyone via open source. So yeah, some of them have attitudes but but these are programmers, not marketing or sales people. I have to disagree with some of the comments their programmers have made in the past but at the same time, these guys are very passionate about what their doing, so constant berating from people like Rickard would probably piss you off too.-- Jacob
Can you clarify your relationship to WebWork? ;)
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Message #187338
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What's about services?
Hi Chris,
sometimes we all are to deep in the last discussions to see new and very important topics...
The issue is not about the trademark of JBoss, which should be
respected, but the trademark of providing services around JBoss. This strictly restriction is something of importance that should be discussed!
Ka-Rike
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Message #187339
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What's about services?
Hi Chris,sometimes we all are to deep in the last discussions to see new and very important topics...The issue is not about the trademark of JBoss, which should be respected, but the trademark of providing services around JBoss. This strictly restriction is something of importance that should be discussed!Ka-Rike
What is the impact on a company that does training or consulting for JBoss AS?
There are a lot of companies that provide and advertise JBoss consulting:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=jboss+consulting
Most of these companies don't seem to be JBoss partners.
Have other companies trademarked their product names for services, i.e., WebLogic?
I see a lot of companies that advertise WebLogic and WebSphere training and consulting.
I could ask my lawyer, but it will cost me $275.00. :o)
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Message #187341
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RE: Get a life
C'mon Oberg, get over it. This personal thing you have with Fleury is getting out of control, invading your life. Move on, make a girlfriend, have kids.
Where are the JBoss folks? No Bill. No Marc.
No JBoss folks in this thread.
Hmmmm.....
PR dept can't get the to stop, but the legal dept can.
On a scale from one to ten (ten being the highest)... How serious of a legal reprecussion on JBoss are Rickard's actions?
My gut feel is a 2. I guess that makes me a JBoss shill.
Ain't that right? (haniidontunderstanditsoitmustbedumb)
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Message #187342
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How it all started
For people interested how it all started (with Telkel and such ...) check the "early" list archives:
http://frech.info/jboss/resources.html
Perhaps I'll fix the broken links to the blogs some day ;-)
For the CVS activity see the articel about "the best developer-friendly open-source license for Java" on TSS.
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Message #187343
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What's about services?
Hi Rick,
I know no other company that restricts services like that.
The impact for a company that does training or consulting for JBoss AS without beeing a chosen partner?
Anyone offering a service dealing with the registered trademark must be aware of breaching laws and must be ready to take the consequences. These consequences according to the law of country I reside:
(1) claim for damages
(2) penalty in case of recurrence of abuse (trademark holder determines how much)
(3) reporting customers and revenues to trademark holder
(4) Obviously you have to stop it regardless what that means to your customer.
( Do I get now $ 275.00 ?? ;o) )
and to follow this thought: what could it mean to a customer of those service providing companies?
The customers will not longer be free in choosing the service partner they trust in or wish and forced to take another - even if they don't want.
Ka-Rike
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Message #187344
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Einstein was an a..
Hey,
who really belives that Einstein was social and says this, should bring up some examples...
Peter
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Message #187345
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Jboss Trademarked to Fleury????
I read this blog and I was surprised to find out that JBoss is trademarked to the individual Mark Fleury?
so what? Linus Torvalds is an individual owner of the Linux trademark
now go lash him too
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Message #187347
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- just boycott JBOSS
Looks like Rickard doesn't have a legal leg to stand on so he produces FUD. Last I heard he threatened to GPL all JBoss code he contributed, which he felt, according to the license, was his right. Did this happen?
As for the FUD, I think Rickard is actually effective. For companies using or considering JBoss, there has to be some doubt around the uncertainty and intent of the JBoss license. There is a question of financial and IP exposure. Why go near it? On Rickard's other front, if some of the core code gets GPL'd, why go near it? This could be too much noise for those making IT decisions on the golf course.
Seems safer and more friendly to use Tomcat/Spring or Tomcat/Geronimo. Those licenses seem safe.
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Message #187348
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Chris, you keep asserting the same untrue things over and over again. Repetition does not increase veracity.
1. The issue has with the licensing status is a complete non-starter. The LGPL requires that the "Library" contain a copyright notice and licensing information (see Section 1 of the LGPL). It does not require that on a file by file basis.
Rather than make these assertions, let's go to the LGPL and see what it says. Section 2b:
b) You must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
And also:
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty;
So far - any file you change you must say within the file that you changed it and the date. And you must publish appropriate copyright notices. This means that the distributor is required to put in copyright notices.
Note that JBoss Inc. doesn't own the copyright on these files but they are distributing them. Therefore they are licensing the files from the original owners - and not living up to the terms.
On top of this, in "How to apply these terms to your New Libraries", the FSF says this:
"To apply these terms, attach the following notices to the library. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found."
Wait - I'm not done! The gnu.org site also has this fascinating article "Why the FSF gets copyright assignments from contributors". It's written by a Columbia Law professor, Eben Moglen:
Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free software programs have historically been first published, there are very substantial procedural advantages to registration of copyright. And despite the broad right of distribution conveyed by the GPL, enforcement of copyright is generally not possible for distributors: only the copyright holder or someone having assignment of the copyright can enforce the license. If there are multiple authors of a copyrighted work, successful enforcement depends on having the cooperation of all authors.
In order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. That way we can be sure that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can completely rely.
Here's the question for both you and for JBoss: given the fact that they don't follow the LGPL terms themselves and also don't bother to follow their recommendations of putting appropriate notices on each and every source file, and given that there is in fact no definitive source (no, not even CVS) of authorship and who the copyright holder for each file is - given all this, who enforces the license?
It's not JBoss Inc. They own nothing. It's not Marc Fleury, or Bill Burke. It's not even Rickard.
Only the copyright owner can enforce the license, and you effectively need all the owners to agree if they want to enforce the terms on someone. JBoss boasts there are, what, 300 contributors in total over time?
Reasonable people (even Lawyers!) might look at this and say that JBoss effectivley has no license because there's no clear ownership at all.
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Message #187350
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Miracle of JBOSS - www.AhmedabadSale.com
Hi Everybody:
I have single handedly developed portal www.AhmedabadSale.com which has taken be 6 months to develop and 1.5 years to customize according to market requirements. This portal uses JBoss as application server. I have not paid a single dollar to Jboss for installing or debugging my applications. Everything was available on the internet.
Since one man has developed this portal the advertising rates for people wanting to place ads in our city comes to $2 per year. You can compare the advertising rates in USA on ebay. We can easily create portals like AustinSale.com or HoustonSale.com where people can place advertisements for $1.0/year. NOW THAT's called FREE SERVICE. That's also called Technology Miracle of Java Platform and JBoss.
Thanks Jboss,
Pushpendra Raval
CEO(and only employee), www.AhmedabadSale.com
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Message #187352
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob:
Umm, I'd like to apologise for my bizarre (even by my admittedly freakish standards) outburst. I didn't (don't) mean what I said, and the ranting and raving was the result of perhaps one too many beverages of a certain composition, posted at a rather ungodly hour best spent asleep instead of hurling obsceneties at well meaning polite people.
For the record, yes I do hate JSF and most of the people involved in it, they are a gleefully cluefree bunch of asshats. Jacob and Kito are the only two that spring to mind who at least seem to imply that it's not necessarily the best thing since sliced bread.
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Message #187354
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Then where the hell is FSF
FSF has a compliance lab to mitigate any non-compliance issues:
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance.html
Why not take up arms with FSF who is the supposed guardian of GPL/LGPL and have the legal interpretations to settle the issue or at least escalate it to some resolution between parties. In the end, it is the integrity of their licensing system that is at stake here and according to Mr. Oberg et. al., JBoss is in gross violation. It is in their best interest to not have JBoss represent the GPL/LGPL system if there are violations since, like it or not, they are a major player of GPL/LGPL software in the commercial marketplace and a primary example of commercial use of OSS and the tenets of the FSF.
I guess if we extend Rickard's logic regarding this subject, then technically his now commercial portal product must be released in source form if any of the IP was developed from his previous GPL/LGPL work -- especially if he received any money during his short tenure at JBoss(ref. Mike Spille's quote of the FSF lawyer regarding work for hire).
Once again Rickard sets up a strawman to vent his personal animosities towards JBoss/Fleury.
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Message #187356
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Mark came with $ in eye. Mark used Rickard. Rickard is angry. Rickard is right.
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Message #187359
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Trademark issue
It seems that if you advocate "JBoss consulting", you risk being sued -- which is not a theory, but something that happened to at least one company.
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Message #187367
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Ten Million
I hope that's not the way they decided to use all that money: to sue other people who wanted to sell JBoss services.
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Message #187370
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Trademark issue
It seems that if you advocate "JBoss consulting", you risk being sued -- which is not a theory, but something that happened to at least one company.
DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A LAWYER.
When you say "JBoss Consulting" a customer may be confused or mistaken thinking that there is some kind of affiliation, connection, sponsorship or approval of your consulting service by JBoss, Inc. This is probably what they object to, i.e. improper use and, as a result, the delusion of their trademark.
Nothing, however, should stop you from offering a "consulting service for JBoss [tm] Application Server" (with a proper disclaimer) or something similar.
--
Igor Zavialov
Factoreal Financial Data and Technical Analysis solutions.
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Message #187383
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Hibernate Status?
What is the OS / licensing status of Hibernate, is it affected by these issues?
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Message #187387
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Trademark issue
It seems that if you advocate "JBoss consulting", you risk being sued -- which is not a theory, but something that happened to at least one company. DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A LAWYER.When you say "JBoss Consulting" a customer may be confused or mistaken thinking that there is some kind of affiliation, connection, sponsorship or approval of your consulting service by JBoss, Inc. This is probably what they object to, i.e. improper use and, as a result, the delusion of their trademark.Nothing, however, should stop you from offering a "consulting service for JBoss [tm] Application Server" (with a proper disclaimer) or something similar.--Igor ZavialovFactoreal Financial Data and Technical Analysis solutions.
If I ever decide to add "training for JBoss[tm] AS" then I will double check with my lawyer, and see what needs to be done to mitigate liability. I do provide training, consulting and mentoring for Hibernate (we have been for nearly two years), and we don't get any calls or threatning letters from JBoss.
I suspect that a lot of this is FUD.
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Message #187395
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Hibernate Status?
What is the OS / licensing status of Hibernate, is it affected by these issues?
go apache OJB. It is way easier to use and at least as powerfull. I used to regret my decision to use OJB after a while because everybody else went hibernate. I am used to both now and OJB just works whereas with hibernate i alsways seem to do something wrong.
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Message #187397
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To use JBoss is a choice
You can choose to use JBoss or not. It's your choice.
We use it with pleasure. It is free, has documentation and support forums. It opens the market for J2EE giving a free alternative to the $$$ costing application servers.
Creating such a weblog is like having nothing better to do. Get a passion / hobby and spend your free time on that, instead of bashing a succesfull company!
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Message #187399
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Hibernate Status?
last time I looked at OJB, it was not by far comparable to hibernate. It claimed a JDO interface, but had its own definition of what JDO is. It did not have a reasonable OQL implementation.
IMO Hibernate is one of the best achievements of the OS community. I can use it for free (including support), look at the source code, and contribute improvements. Thats more than I dare to ask for. Period.
Christian
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Message #187403
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Hibernate Status?
last time I looked at OJB, it was not by far comparable to hibernate. they are indeed not comparable. There fortunally is no such thing as a session that should be flushed or "detached" objects in OJB, that alone makes OJB easier to use.
It claimed a JDO interface, but had its own definition of what JDO is. I personally couldn't care less about JDO.
It did not have a reasonable OQL implementation. code in code , no thanks. Ojb's Criteria API is a much better approach. Hibernates criteria API is overly complex.
I can use it for free (including support), look at the source code, and contribute improvements. Thats more than I dare to ask for. Period.Christian
For as far as i know ojb is free and open and will always be, we have to wait if this will be the case for hibernate also.
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Message #187404
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not a choice anymore
You are pretty new in J2EE world, so you may be not aware that it was Rickard Öberg who wrote significant parts of
JBoss so he definitely has a lot to say (and by conicidence owns a copyright on those parts) on this issue.
( and in case you are concerned - he got private life,
and he spends his time on developing good software. )
There is nothing against JB AS as PRODUCT ( except maybe
some licensing issues ) it's about deeds of JB Europe SARL
( not sure what proper case is ) - they use trademark
"JBOSS" ( which was collective creation of several people )registered by individual ( Marc Fleury ) to disable competitors trying to provide support and teaching for JB
AS - so only thy and their partners will be able to provide any service to users.
How many customers ( big ones ) would be willing to use it
( and your work based on it ) if they ca not get support
where they like to? Check for JB Inc support / teching prices - you will be surprised than on long term you
could be better off by buying at commercial competition.
And I by no means think that JB is successfull company.
What they got?
1. $$$ from VCs ( they ought to pay it back somehow )
2. some employes to be paid
3. a lot of top scale commiters left them
4. no sales of JB AS as software
5. licensing issues
6. really expensive teaching and suport offers
7. european trademark registered by individual (Marc Fleury and registration took some 2 years ) - pretty long
even for european bureaucracy - and this trademark can be disputed
8. Some idiot inside who tried to drive their former partners completely out of business and started this PR war
9. A lot of bad publicity from #8
Is that a success? Their current business modell stinks to me. I'm not going to recommend my customers to use it anymore. And since almost nobody realy needs all of J2EE
now - there are alternatives.
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Message #187405
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To use JBoss is a choice
You can choose to use JBoss or not. It's your choice.We use it with pleasure. It is free, has documentation and support forums. It opens the market for J2EE giving a free alternative to the $$$ costing application servers. Creating such a weblog is like having nothing better to do. Get a passion / hobby and spend your free time on that, instead of bashing a succesfull company!
Rickard did spend all his passion on a thing called jboss 3. Whereafter the thing sky rocketed. This man gave us hot deployment while all other "vendors" where still doing there pathetic deploy thing. Do you use AOP, where did it start, right JBoss 3 , dynamic proxies. You really don't know what you are talking about.
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Message #187407
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Trademark issue
If I ever decide to add "training for JBoss[tm] AS" then I will double check with my lawyer [..] we don't get any calls or threatning letters from JBoss.
I suspect that a lot of this is FUD.
I suspect that you have no information to base your suspicions on. Your accuse Rickard of FUD, a claim that you do not attempt to substantiate. Having spoken to Rickard about this (when he was trying to figure out if the issue had any merit, and what he could do to help these companies if the claim did have merit), I am lead to believe that your FUD claim is clearly unfair. Rickard was dragged into this by his conscience, to defend parties that he has no financial interest in, and your pot-shots are his reward.
Peace,
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol Coherence: Clustered Transactional Caching
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Message #187411
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really that much of a problem?
I really dont see *that* much of a problem with JBoss practices. As I understand it, all we have to stay away from is to explicitly mention the JBoss name in connection with services we offer. I can live with the fact that MF is the only one who can claim to provide "JBoss services" - there are other ways to communicate expertise to customers.
I certainly still am able to use the server as much as any other - and my customers dont care whether I carry a JBoss logo on my website or not.
Christian
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Message #187415
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
According to an article of Heise-online news (in german language only - http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/64762) JBoss threatens to sue german J2EE-consulting company Brockhaus (www.brockhaus-gruppe.de) for using JBoss-brand any longer. Brockhaus was JBoss-partner until August 2005. The article says that JBoss has cancelled the partnership without giving any reason)
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Message #187416
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When the lawyers take over...
...it is usually not good news for any company. I remember having discussions about how the OS business model scales or not.. Now this model probably scales quite well :-).
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Message #187417
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if you are really carefull...
and do not advertise your services, and double check
whether customer coming to you is coming just to check
whether you put word "j???s" in you mounth to be able to sue you - you may just ontinue your business as usuall.
But I doubt you can acquire big contracts with it.
You are under radar level, you got contracts - but where is
money for j***s in it?
Big companies are buying support openly, and they DO check how much does it cost. And is they have free choice in service providers, and authorized j???s services are damn expensive, they will got to competitors.
( and for big accounts the prices look similary high, either with j???s , or with competition )
Where do they buy support and teaching? ( by people who goto better sales depts, where they got more choice etc. )
And it will be not Fleury et al.
Where will they get their money from?
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Message #187418
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really that much of a problem?
I see it as a problem, because JBoss is a joint effort of many people. Imagine Rickard would run a company and he, as an ex-core developer, wants to offer "JBoss support" with the nice JBoss logo on his webpage. Perhaps i am wrong, but most likely he will be sued. Alone the fact that a copyright holder on some jboss code cant provide "JBoss services" the way he wants to, seems crazy.
To compare this situation with Linux is laughable because as we all know, everyone can provide Linux services and place the linux logo beneath the claim. Nobody is going to punish someone for that. Of course, as end user, the whole story doesnt matter too much.
Regarding pricing. I once was in a meeting with objectone, the biggest JBoss partner company in germany and we talked about service contracts and the numbers were plain crazy. First of all they said that the contract is based on "installed apps". The questions of what an application is, was hard to discuss, because if i deploy 5 simple web applications (war files) like an addressmanager, a phonebook and so on, i definitely have 5 apps. When using their per app pricing against this scenario, you get price tags you wont forget in years. I know that JBoss is exciting because of 0$ initial price but their service contracts are in the upper range of the J2EE vendors league. In a heavy clustered environment, you will run pretty fine with that strategy, but for one-server installations, i am quite sure that the TCO of other J2EE vendors are not too much different. But perhaps they changed their service contracts the last months and i am wrong...
Marc Logemann
http://www.logemann.org
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Message #187421
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Trademark issue
Rickard was dragged into this by his conscience, to defend parties that he has no financial interest in, and your pot-shots are his reward.Peace,Cameron Purdy
Mr. Oberg and his company Senselogic.se most definitely do have a financial interest in this crusade. In fact, JBoss Portal was specifically mentioned in his complaints even though the Portal product was well after his tenure at JBoss and is most likely well outside the scope of any files he committed to JBoss.
As far as FUD, I've even seen you on other threads regarding licensing issues on TSS have to correct and temper Rickard's interpretations([sic] tirades) on licensing and such directed at JBoss. (Late August threads if I remember correctly). So I think it's not too far a stretch to at least suspect FUD if not claim it outright.
The bottom line is that Mr. Oberg has a company(this goes for the Brockhaus folk too). If he feels that there are business doings by JBoss that are legally suspect -- use his own lawyers to approach JBoss or file a complaint with FSF. Don't throw a blog up and declare himself saviour of the FOSS movement and recruit lemmings to jump off a cliff with him. I would venture a guess that you could count on one hand people who haven't had their cherry popped in a bad business dealing on these fora so I feel for him on that issue. So Mr. Oberg should put up or shut up instead of grandstanding with blogspace drivel. The sad part is that there probably are merits in his complaints.
From a 50,000 foot view, the real issue here is how worthless GPL/LGPL is as a licensing document. Anybody who has a beef against somebody else can declare foul and accuse without any basis other than individual legal interpretation.
Again, as I said above, where the hell is FSF or GNU or whomever controls the GPL/LGPL to arbitrate stuff like this. Unless they step up and defend the integrity of these licenses, they are nothing more than vacuous manifestos that should be left out of serious discussion and practical use.
If Jboss is in violation, the GPL/LGPL folks should step up and force them to comply. If they aren't, they should ask for a cease and desist on Mr. Oberg et. al in being the interpreters of their license.
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Message #187422
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This article is really quite amusing. Some highlights from it (for those without a translation machine and willing to read an amateur translation):
-- snipp --
"As of Matthias Bohnen, CEO of Brockhaus Group, JBoss canceled the partnership without mentioning any reasons. Brockhaus continued to support services around JBoss and used the name on the name on their internet site. On September 26th Brockhaus received a dissuasion on which the company removed all references to JBoss from their site. Furthermore the consulting company, which spent a lot of money to provide JBoss Services, was prompted to show his financial figures to JBoss Inc."
-- snipp --
Heavy stuff indeed. Especially the paragraph where Brockhaus should show his financial situation is quite amazing.
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Message #187426
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Mike, go talk to a lawyer. Seriously. You post this garbage all the time.
Chris, you keep asserting the same untrue things over and over again. Repetition does not increase veracity.
1. The issue has with the licensing status is a complete non-starter. The LGPL requires that the "Library" contain a copyright notice and licensing information (see Section 1 of the LGPL). It does not require that on a file by file basis.
Rather than make these assertions, let's go to the LGPL and see what it says. Section 2b:b) You must cause the files modified to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
Section 2b only applies when modifications are made. There is still no requirement for every file to have a copyright statement in it.
And also:1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Library's complete source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; So far - any file you change you must say within the file that you changed it and the date. And you must publish appropriate copyright notices. This means that the distributor is required to put in copyright notices.
The distributor is required to have a copyright notice in the distribution of the "Library", the entire work, not per file. If the distributor makes no changes to a file then they are not required to make any annotation to that affect. Furthermore, not following 2b is a fixable issue, you aren't going to lose your rights to redistribution permanently, you are going to be required to become compliant.
Note that JBoss Inc. doesn't own the copyright on these files but they are distributing them. Therefore they are licensing the files from the original owners - and not living up to the terms.
Which terms are they not living up to? You seem to think that they need to add a copyright notice to every file. They don't. They do provide a copy of the LGPL in the distribution which contains the exclusion of warranty provision as required. Can you point out any modifications that JBoss, Inc. has made to a file which they did not write and so would require 2b to come into effect? I don't know the codebase so I couldn't answer that question.
On top of this, in "How to apply these terms to your New Libraries", the FSF says this:"To apply these terms, attach the following notices to the library. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
Which is great advice and most organizations follow it. Totally not required by copyright law.
"Wait - I'm not done! The gnu.org site also has this fascinating article "Why the FSF gets copyright assignments from contributors". It's written by a Columbia Law professor, Eben Moglen:Under US copyright law, which is the law under which most free software programs have historically been first published, there are very substantial procedural advantages to registration of copyright. And despite the broad right of distribution conveyed by the GPL, enforcement of copyright is generally not possible for distributors: only the copyright holder or someone having assignment of the copyright can enforce the license. If there are multiple authors of a copyrighted work, successful enforcement depends on having the cooperation of all authors.In order to make sure that all of our copyrights can meet the recordkeeping and other requirements of registration, and in order to be able to enforce the GPL most effectively, FSF requires that each author of code incorporated in FSF projects provide a copyright assignment, and, where appropriate, a disclaimer of any work-for-hire ownership claims by the programmer's employer. That way we can be sure that all the code in FSF projects is free code, whose freedom we can most effectively protect, and therefore on which other developers can completely rely. Here's the question for both you and for JBoss: given the fact that they don't follow the LGPL terms themselves and also don't bother to follow their recommendations of putting appropriate notices on each and every source file, and given that there is in fact no definitive source (no, not even CVS) of authorship and who the copyright holder for each file is - given all this, who enforces the license?It's not JBoss Inc. They own nothing. It's not Marc Fleury, or Bill Burke. It's not even Rickard.Only the copyright owner can enforce the license, and you effectively need all the owners to agree if they want to enforce the terms on someone.
That isn't precisely true, in order to totally enjoin someone from distributing JBoss they'd need all of the copyright owners to work together. But, for example, Bill Burke can enforce his rights on the code that he contributed. If enough individuals enforce their rights then you're going to end up with a small pile of code that may or may not do anything (back to me not knowing their codebase). That can be an effective method to control the work. The Linux kernel which has upwards of 1000 different contributors has successfully defended the copyright against very large companies (see the Cisco/Linksys issue). This doesn't really have anything to do with whether or not Rickard's comments regarding the licensing status are correct though.
JBoss boasts there are, what, 300 contributors in total over time?Reasonable people (even Lawyers!) might look at this and say that JBoss effectivley has no license because there's no clear ownership at all.
Since there are far more contributors than that for Linux and the reasonable lawyers at Cicso/Linksys thought they would be in world of pain if they didn't give into the demands of the Linux kernel developers I would say that you're wrong. The reasonable lawyers at most of the biggest software and hardware companies in the world all seem to think that Linux is just fine. Of course you can always get SCO's lawyers who have claimed that the GPL is unconstitutional, but you seemed to be hoping that some reasonable lawyer would back you up, not the totally nutty ones.
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Message #187428
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Section 2b only applies when modifications are made. There is still no requirement for every file to have a copyright statement in it.
And has this requirement been fulfilled on files that have been modified? Can you point us to any file in the JBoss sources where this has been done?
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Message #187437
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JBOSS Posessed of the Devil
""There are all these little clever companies that are figuring little clever ways of trying to get something for nothing, and that's called theft. "
-Jonathan Schwartz
Executive Vice President,
Sun Software Group
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Message #187438
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Trademark issue
Mr. Oberg and his company Senselogic.se most definitely do have a financial interest in this crusade. In fact, JBoss Portal was specifically mentioned in his complaints even though the Portal product was well after his tenure at JBoss and is most likely well outside the scope of any files he committed to JBoss.
I had not considered this. It is true that Rickard's company makes a Portal product.
My point is that, to the best of my knowledge, Rickard has no direct financial benefit from the companies mentioned. In fact, my understanding is that he had never heard of them before they contacted him with this problem.
I'm hardly objective, since I consider Rickard to be a trusted friend. While I don't always agree with him (e.g. many of his views on the U.S.), I've never known him to be duplicitous or dishonest.
Regarding the current topic (trademarks, German companies, lawsuits, etc.) I am mostly ignorant of the details on both sides, so I haven't had any opportunity to build an informed opinion. I was hoping to see more detailed information come to light, and it would have been nice to see an official response from the company that is purportedly bringing suit, etc.
Peace,
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol Coherence: Clustered Transactional Caching
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Message #187440
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Section 2b only applies when modifications are made. There is still no requirement for every file to have a copyright statement in it. And has this requirement been fulfilled on files that have been modified? Can you point us to any file in the JBoss sources where this has been done?
As I said in my post I don't have any expertise on the JBoss source code. However, as pointed out by Tobias Frech in an earlier post, there is a great case to be made that it's all available via the JBoss cvs repository:
Hey guys, open your mind, we are living in a new century. Stop thinking of files in terms of paper printouts. All files are marked with the changes as required by the LGPL. Want an example? See here:
http://anoncvs.forge.jboss.com/viewrep/JBoss/jboss-system/src/main/org/jboss/Main.java?r=1.44
Now, whether or not that applies is probably going to require clarification from the FSF or a lawyer experienced with contract and copyright law. However, taking a quick peek at some of the software owned by the FSF, I'm not seeing many cases where modification information is directly in the source file. That would lead me to believe that storing such information in revision control would meet the license (assuming that the revision control information is publicly available), or at least the FSF's interpretation of the license. But, again, I'm not going to go out and say it meets the terms of the license or not.
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Message #187444
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Trademark issue
If I ever decide to add "training for JBoss[tm] AS" then I will double check with my lawyer [..] we don't get any calls or threatning letters from JBoss.I suspect that a lot of this is FUD. I suspect that you have no information to base your suspicions on. Your accuse Rickard of FUD, a claim that you do not attempt to substantiate. Having spoken to Rickard about this (when he was trying to figure out if the issue had any merit, and what he could do to help these companies if the claim did have merit), I am lead to believe that your FUD claim is clearly unfair. Rickard was dragged into this by his conscience, to defend parties that he has no financial interest in, and your pot-shots are his reward.Peace,Cameron PurdyTangosol Coherence: Clustered Transactional Caching
I think you put too much into Rickards "pure" intentions. Unfortunately, most of us have been en route to Jboss World Barcelona, or preparing for it. This obvious attack on our integrity has been posted at the most unopportune time for us to respond. I think you'll find that once the facts are out that not only has Rickard misrepresented that facts, that he has acted irresponisible in creating baseless FUD around *every* GPL/LGPL based open source non-JBoss based project.
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Message #187445
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Trademark issue
If I ever decide to add "training for JBoss[tm] AS" then I will double check with my lawyer [..] we don't get any calls or threatning letters from JBoss.I suspect that a lot of this is FUD. I suspect that you have no information to base your suspicions on. Your accuse Rickard of FUD, a claim that you do not attempt to substantiate. Having spoken to Rickard about this (when he was trying to figure out if the issue had any merit, and what he could do to help these companies if the claim did have merit), I am lead to believe that your FUD claim is clearly unfair. Rickard was dragged into this by his conscience, to defend parties that he has no financial interest in, and your pot-shots are his reward.Peace,Cameron PurdyTangosol Coherence: Clustered Transactional Caching
"I suspect that this is a lot of FUD" is a potshot?
I thought it was just an opinion.
If this were not FUD, why not hire a lawyer and go after JBoss.
I have a lot of respect for Rickard. I don't claim to be friends with him, but I've always been friendly towards him.
I don't think Rickard is a protected individual, and that I must walk on egg shells when disagreeing with him.
I didn't say Rickard was "evil" or that the FUD was intentional.
Rickard is a darn good developer. He is a legend. Rickard is not a lawyer. He is not the infallable pope of open source.
The information that I have is what he wrote and the discussion in this forum. I have formed the opinion that this is FUD.
My opinion is not set in stone. I'd like to hear, otherwise, but for now, it sounds like FUD.
War,
Rick Hightower
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Message #187446
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Trademark issue
Cameron,
Mr. Oberg and his company Senselogic.se most definitely do have a financial interest in this crusade. In fact, JBoss Portal was specifically mentioned in his complaints even though the Portal product was well after his tenure at JBoss and is most likely well outside the scope of any files he committed to JBoss. I had not considered this. It is true that Rickard's company makes a Portal product.My point is that, to the best of my knowledge, Rickard has no direct financial benefit from the companies mentioned. In fact, my understanding is that he had never heard of them before they contacted him with this problem.I'm hardly objective, since I consider Rickard to be a trusted friend. While I don't always agree with him (e.g. many of his views on the U.S.), I've never known him to be duplicitous or dishonest.Regarding the current topic (trademarks, German companies, lawsuits, etc.) I am mostly ignorant of the details on both sides, so I haven't had any opportunity to build an informed opinion. I was hoping to see more detailed information come to light, and it would have been nice to see an official response from the company that is purportedly bringing suit, etc.Peace,Cameron PurdyTangosol Coherence: Clustered Transactional Caching
I heard through the grapvine (almost every post of yours) that your company makes some sort of Clustered Transactional Caching. I guess no one should defend your right to have an opinion wrt to JBoss b/c of JBoss TreeCache. Rickard may be right, but IMO it seems he is mostly mistaken. Regardless, I am sure it has nothing to do with his portal project.
Did you deny Rickard three times before the cock crowed?
I love all of the conspiracy theories.
War,
The non-infallable
Rick Hightower
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Message #187447
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Mark came with $ in eye. Mark used Rickard. Rickard is angry. Rickard is right.
Rickard may be right on a philosophical (sp?) level and maybe in a moral level, but will his claims hold up in court.
Being right and $1.00 will not buy a cup of coffee.
Mike Spille makes some interesting points, but I am not sure if they help or hurt Rickard's case.
The real issue with the Germany case seems to be a JBoss service trademark issue and not a LPGL issue.
I can't even spell lawyer so take this for what it is worth: $0.0.
I think Rickard's blog will have an impact, but not sure it will be any legal impact. I am sure it will have more of a PR impact, and not wanting future bad PR.
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Message #187448
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Here is the article translated into English:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sourceid=navclient-menuext&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eheise%2Ede%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2F64762
The issue seems to be just with the service trademark. The issue seems to be confined to "European trademark law" not U.S., which is good if you don't live in Europe.
According to the article: "Hibernate, a popular object-relational Mapping Tool, which is likewise marketed by Jboss, is so far (service trademarked) mark-legally protected and could not be the next candidate for the described practices."
(Notice there is some loss in the original translation.)
There are 221 comments on this article.
Since I can't read German and the above article does not always make sense in the automated-English translation, I am not sure exactly what it says. But, the trademark issues seems to be a European issue.
--Rick Hightower
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Message #187451
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Trademark issue
I heard through the grapvine (almost every post of yours) that your company makes some sort of Clustered Transactional Caching. I guess no one should defend your right to have an opinion wrt to JBoss b/c of JBoss TreeCache. Rickard may be right, but IMO it seems he is mostly mistaken. Regardless, I am sure it has nothing to do with his portal project.Did you deny Rickard three times before the cock crowed?I love all of the conspiracy theories.War,The non-infallableRick Hightower
Rick, the point was not about conspiracy so easy on the smugness. I could care less what Rickard Oberg's opinion is and I don't begrudge him any of it -- his interpretations are irrelevant to what the community has to deal with as far as LGPL/GPL and trademarks. However, Rickard has a commercial conflict of interest wrt to this whole issue so he should stop airing this beef in public forums and take it to the legal departments where it should be. If he's right, JBoss is in trouble.
The trademark issue definitely does has something to do with LGPL/GPL because it's an issue of which takes precedence. Just because you don't live in Europe doesn't mean EU resolutions are going to affect everyone. The WTO is the final word.
This is what the discussion was about so how about reading the whole post before being a wiseass.
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Message #187453
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RE: no more conspiracy theories!
Frank,
Rickard has a commercial conflict of interest wrt to this whole issue...
Frankly, I don't agree. This seems like more FUD to me.
Rickard interests seem to be a lot more about giving a lot of blood, sweat and tears to JBoss 3.0 and then losing control of his work than it is about some potential conflict with Portal. This is not to say that I agree with him, but I do believe he is is passionate in his beliefs.
Thus, I disagree. If disagreeing with you makes me a smug, wiseass then so be it.
I assure you that I am neither. O.K., I might be a wiseass.
Why is it if someone disagrees with you need to resort to conspiracy theories and name calling?
This is not a political debate. I am feed up with the character assasinations.
Rickard may be a lot of things, but a greedy, capatilist is not one of them.
I don't know you Frank so I won't say anymore.
--Rick Hightower
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Message #187454
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Trademark issue
I have formed the opinion that this is FUD. My opinion is not set in stone. I'd like to hear, otherwise, but for now, it sounds like FUD.
The reason that I disagreed with your assessment of "FUD" is that "FUD" implies a certain intent, at least in my mind. With respect to the trademark issue, I do not think that Rickard has any intent to "spread FUD". In fact, the only uncertainty right now is what the specifics of the claims in the alleged lawsuit are.
With respect to the license questions, I wouldn't touch those with a ten-foot lawyer.
In regards to your other off-topic points, I have no desire to go tit-for-tat.
Peace,
Cameron Purdy
Tangosol Coherence: Clustered Transactional Caching
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Message #187457
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Trademark issue
I have formed the opinion that this is FUD. My opinion is not set in stone. I'd like to hear, otherwise, but for now, it sounds like FUD. The reason that I disagreed with your assessment of "FUD" is that "FUD" implies a certain intent, at least in my mind. With respect to the trademark issue, I do not think that Rickard has any intent to "spread FUD". In fact, the only uncertainty right now is what the specifics of the claims in the alleged lawsuit are.With respect to the license questions, I wouldn't touch those with a ten-foot lawyer.In regards to your other off-topic points, I have no desire to go tit-for-tat.Peace,Cameron PurdyTangosol Coherence: Clustered Transactional Caching
If spreading FUD implies intent, then Rickard may not be culpable. I don't think FUD implies intent just effect.
RE: In regards to your other off-topic points, I have no desire to go tit-for-tat.
BTW I was referring to cock as in rooster. And crow as in to utter the shrill cry characteristic of a cock or rooster.
I just realize when you said the above that it could be interpreted in another manner. I am not phallic obsessed like someone else who frequents this site.
I am done with this topic. I have become a TSS junky since I posted that story on BEA WebLogic and Spring integration.
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Message #187460
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Now, whether or not that applies is probably going to require clarification from the FSF or a lawyer experienced with contract and copyright law.
How can a file "carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change" when said notices only exist as metadata within a CVS repository and not in the file itself? Even if we would assume for a moment, that this would fulfill clause 2b (and I really have my doubts here), note that CVS is probably not a very reliable tool for such purposes: renamed or moved files are not linked to their older versions and so you loose all original commit comments on these files. Gee, just look at the example Tobias gave. First of all, who is "user57"? Someone who lost commit privileges? Could have been Rickard himself or some other guy who left JBoss in the past I guess. Then, version 1.1 probably is not the first version of the file. The commit comment says
moved core system from server to system (includes all of org.jboss.system, some of org.jboss.deployment + Main, Shutdown & Version)
which hardly looks like an initial checkin. It might be, but I have no chance to tell from the information the source code repository gives me. Which is exactly my point.
However, taking a quick peek at some of the software owned by the FSF, I'm not seeing many cases where modification information is directly in the source file.
Since the FSF requires transfer of ownership for every accepted patch for software they own, they probably don't have to. LGPL only applies to parties wishing to <strong>redistribute</strong> something. FSF as the owner of that software doesn't redistribute, it distributes.
That would lead me to believe that storing such information in revision control would meet the license (assuming that the revision control information is publicly available), or at least the FSF's interpretation of the license. But, again, I'm not going to go out and say it meets the terms of the license or not.
That's why the LGPL is a bad license. Too much interpretation is needed because its wording is so unclear.
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Message #187462
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
I believe Rickard chose not to open source his company's Portal software because of IP concerns. And yet now he blogs as a champion of LGPL and FOSS?
That's just wrong really. That fact that a person worked on an open source licensed project and then on a proprietary one disqualifies that person from talking about violations of license in the first? What is this, good vs evil, once you've stepped on the dark side you cannot ever return?! Come on now, think for a second.
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Message #187463
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Translation lost sense
"Hibernate, a popular object-relational Mapping Tool, which is likewise marketed by Jboss, is so far (service trademarked) mark-legally protected and could not be the next candidate for the described practices."(Notice there is some loss in the original translation.)
And most importantly the sense got lost in the translation. It has to be sth. like "[...]and could be the next candidate for the described practices."
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Message #187467
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- just boycott JBOSS
Jacob:Umm, I'd like to apologise for my bizarre (even by my admittedly freakish standards) outburst. I didn't (don't) mean what I said[...]
Hani apologises... What has the world come to? I can already see the CNN headlines.
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Message #187468
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what happened to CVS view on sourceforge?
Hi Bill,
You as one of the admins of the SF project surely could shed
some ilght to issue, where old CVS view gone?
Unless SF got hacked, it could be only 3 persosns able to
diable it ( You, Juha & Scott )
WHY?
And as of timing - it was lawyer of your company who
started it all. So if it collides with your event,
mistake is on your side. You could as well wait 2 weeks.
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Message #187484
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trademark and US
Rick, i dont see why this is only a european issue. I dont know if Marc Fleury has trademarked JBoss in US too (which i assume) but when he has, then its the same story for US ISVs. The trademark laws are not that much different i think (in contrast to patents).
Legally it seems pretty ok to go for people using your trademarks without permission, but as i am also not a lawyer, i dont know how far this can go. Can i say "we do services around JBoss appServer" or can i say "we do services around BEA Weblogic server" without having a contract with the companies? As i said, i dont know. But whatever the facts are, such press is not very good for Jboss standing which is heavily based on developer support, whereas IBM and BEA have strong Management support. If someone can shock developers here and there, than its these guys, not JBoss.
All in all, i can see IBM gleefully jumping around because of these news. Its the perfect time to market Geronimo as "real" open source without any lawyers in the backyard. At least i would react this way if i would command IBM marketing ;-)
Marc Logemann
http://www.logemann.org
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Message #187486
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heise.de Reporting about JBoss actions againt Brockhaus
heise.de - the biggest German Technews site is reporting today about JBoss threaten Brockhaus GmbH with a fine of 25.000EUR/per case if Brockhaus uses the brand JBoss for there services. Brockhaus has been a JBoss partner, but JBoss has canceled this partnership without a comment. http://http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/64762
This is not my opinon just an abstract of the references article - I've just thought that it fits into this thread.
Mirko
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Message #187493
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heise.de Reporting about JBoss actions againt Brockhaus
Probably they can start offer "Jboss (tm) compatible" stuff. By the analogue with "IBM PC compatible".
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Message #187494
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Open Source is not Free Software
Sales cycles, sales commission, demos etc are very expensive for a software company selling software licenses. Better to "give" software away, charge for support, third parties, and keep control of your trademark. That's what JBoss are doing.
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Message #187498
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Where are the blogs comments?
Kudos to TheServerSide for reporting this and proving that most things regarding 'JBoss' still generates lots of reads and comments. An assured TGP (Traffic Generating Post).
I find the whole thing somewhat ironic, that for all the arm waving of being open etc, why the JBoss Issue blog has the comments turned off. Do they fear the comments from the community?
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Message #187500
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Different trademark strategies
E.g. Bea Systems
Owns classifications 9 (see below) and 4 (service-stuff); means NO ONE could offer a "bea" training / consulting / whatever ; thats fair and their best right to defeat against it.
E.g. WebLogic Server
ONLY classification 9 (Computer software used in connection with building and running applications), means simply EVERYONE could go for the services using "WebLogic", decision is up to the market.
IBM / WebSphere goes pretty much the same way.
In contrast JBoss; product AND service protected by SAME trademark under the SAME name !!
That is the difference.
Ka-Rike
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Message #187505
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trademark and US
whereas IBM and BEA have strong Management support. If someone can shock developers here and there, than its these guys, not JBoss.All in all, i can see IBM gleefully jumping around because of these news. Its the perfect time to market Geronimo as "real" open source without any lawyers in the backyard. At least i would react this way if i would command IBM marketing
As always i take my chance to say something about IBM when it comes along. Normally i am ranting but i have to give them some credit now for promoting geronimo. Not because i like apache so much or geronimo is better (dont even know that). It seems that IBM is finally admitting that websphere does not suite every job and is most of the time overkill. Don't know what got 'm to see the light but hey it is a start.
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Message #187509
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trademark and US
hey it is a start.
PS. the next step would be to admit that RAD is also way to heavy for most stuff. Hence they should also promote core eclipse in combination with geronimo.
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Message #187514
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trademark and US
Ka-Rike explained it very well, but even here in germany (and on the news site forum mentioned here several times, btw the biggest IT News portal in Europe) its not completely clear among readers and spectators that JBoss argumentation would stand in court. Of course they registered the "Service" class in the trademark office, but if this is enough to forbid every service work around JBoss is quite vague.
If this would be so easy, every big car manufacturer like DaimlerCrysler, Ford and all the others would do it this way. Then no independent car garage could say "we repair Mercedes, Ford and VW". So i hope that in the future some company will step up and test this issue in court. My bet is 60/40 that you can say "We provide services around JBoss Application Server". IMO its important not to appear as if you have some kind of partnership with JBoss Inc.
Marc Logemann
http://www.logemann.org
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Message #187516
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Now, whether or not that applies is probably going to require clarification from the FSF or a lawyer experienced with contract and copyright law. How can a file "carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change" when said notices only exist as metadata within a CVS repository and not in the file itself?
Because (and this is true for all licenses) whether or not you are in compliance with the license is more or less at the whim of the copyright holder. If the copyright holder feels that metadata within a CVS repository is good enough to meet 2b then you'll never get taken to court over it. If they don't think it's good enough you will.
Even if we would assume for a moment, that this would fulfill clause 2b (and I really have my doubts here), note that CVS is probably not a very reliable tool for such purposes: renamed or moved files are not linked to their older versions and so you loose all original commit comments on these files.
That is true but you still have the data. Just because CVS handles moves and renames badly doesn't make the original metadata go away.
Gee, just look at the example Tobias gave. First of all, who is "user57"? Someone who lost commit privileges? Could have been Rickard himself or some other guy who left JBoss in the past I guess.
In the open source world people are very often known by their handle. Just because you don't know who "user57" is doesn't mean that "user57" doesn't know and that the project maintainers don't know. They're the ones that need to know, not you.
Then, version 1.1 probably is not the first version of the file. The commit comment saysmoved core system from server to system (includes all of org.jboss.system, some of org.jboss.deployment + Main, Shutdown & Version) which hardly looks like an initial checkin. It might be, but I have no chance to tell from the information the source code repository gives me. Which is exactly my point.
But your point doesn't have any legal validity. You aren't one of the parties that needs to be aware of whether it is the original file or not. As long as those parties are happy then there is no problem.
However, taking a quick peek at some of the software owned by the FSF, I'm not seeing many cases where modification information is directly in the source file. Since the FSF requires transfer of ownership for every accepted patch for software they own, they probably don't have to. LGPL only applies to parties wishing to <strong>redistribute</strong> something. FSF as the owner of that software doesn't redistribute, it distributes.
Ok, that may be true, but I also don't see many of those notices in XEmacs either and the FSF isn't complaining about XEmacs (a direct fork of GNU Emacs).
That would lead me to believe that storing such information in revision control would meet the license (assuming that the revision control information is publicly available), or at least the FSF's interpretation of the license. But, again, I'm not going to go out and say it meets the terms of the license or not. That's why the LGPL is a bad license. Too much interpretation is needed because its wording is so unclear.
Every license requires interpretation. The laws that govern licenses and copyright require interpretation. The big problem here is that there are a bunch of people who are trying to find technical loopholes in a license. Of course a license starts to get complicated when a bunch of people with an agenda against it try to poke it to find any phrasing that is the least bit unclear.
Many, many open source projects get by just fine doing the exact same things that JBoss is doing because everyone just tries to get along. There are often technical disputes and sometimes things blow up to the point there is a fork (Emacs/XEmacs, GCC/EGCS, XFree/X.org). But only among the petty squabling Java developers have I seen people go out of their way to claim that a project isn't working in good faith with the license. It's pretty sad.
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Message #187517
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
I think you're missing a key point here, Chris. How exactly do you determine who owns the copyright on what file?
And don't say "there are established court precedents" :-)
Pragmatically - how do you determine this? In JBoss' case, code has been often moved around. People have e-mailed patches and had it applied by others with CVS access. Code has been copied from other totally non-JBoss sources and checked in (this happens frequently from BSD-style licensed code).
The FSF talks about copyright assignment, attribution of changes within files, etc for exactly this reason: to keep the chain of ownership clear and to avoid problems in identifying ownership. The clauses aren't in there on a whim or as a silly rule. They're there so the license can actually be enforced.
In JBoss' case (and I suspect many others) they haven't followed the rules and ownership is probably unaccertainable for the codebase in total. Just figuring on patches e-mailed in, you can't rely on CVS. Figure in external code that was checked in "clean" without attribution and the problem grows (e.g. log4j code was checked in in this manner). And refactorings where people got tired of CVS limitations and just moved or renamed things raw (e.g. there's no way to track how they moved and changed at all because there's literally no way to track these types of changes).
The JBoss guys have blatantly ignored both the LGPL license and also the FSF recommendations. The end result is that they have a codebase where they probably can't enforce _any_ license. I don't know the Linux cases you cite but I have looked at the JBoss side.
Seriously, think pragmatically about this. How do we know who owns what here? We know there are many cases where code checked in was not owned at all by the ID checking it in. This is not to say that any wrong doing was going on, just that the CVS record is fundamentally flawed and inaccurate and can't be used to determine ownership. JBoss Inc. literally can't comply because they don't know who owns what. And probably in many cases owners can't take action
either because they haven't taken basic steps to keep to assert ownership.
Try this exercise, Chris. Take a random file out of JBoss and copy it to some random BSD code base. There are many source files in JBoss that can be used independently or only with a small number of related classes/interfaces.
Now tell me - who's going to go after you for infringement? How could you determine this? How could the owners prove that they own it?
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Message #187519
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Black Kettle calling?
Ahem does nto Sun do exactly what JBoss is accused of?
I have in fact never been prevented from offering JBoss services by JBoss, INC..
Its jsut the name/brand issue.. and that brand is in fact not Oberg's..
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Message #187524
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Rick Hightower
<<--
I am not phallic obsessed like someone else who frequents this site.
I am done with this topic. I have become a TSS junky since I posted that story on BEA WebLogic and Spring integration.
-->
Thats right - a junky. You seem to have some sort of a rule -"The 15% rule", which states - "I shall post no less than 15 percent of all post within a topic."
Even if it takes five consequtive single-sentence posts.
You need to be examined. Soon.
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Message #187526
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
I think you're missing a key point here, Chris. How exactly do you determine who owns the copyright on what file?And don't say "there are established court precedents" :-) Pragmatically - how do you determine this? In JBoss' case, code has been often moved around. People have e-mailed patches and had it applied by others with CVS access. Code has been copied from other totally non-JBoss sources and checked in (this happens frequently from BSD-style licensed code).
That is, pragmatically, a difficult question to answer. And it's certainly not exclusive to JBoss, many open source projects have the same issue. In the grand scheme of things, JBoss is a small project; projects like the various BSDs and Linux would be much better to look at because they are an order of magnitude bigger.
The difficulty is, there is no short answer to this. And some of it will rely on court precendent. The patches, for example, may or may not be large enough or "expressive" enough to even receive copyright (which is the part that may require court precendent). Changes like translating documentation and fixing misspellings (both of which are creating a derivative work, not creating a new expressive work of their own), for example, would probably not meet the bar for copyright. Neither would small bug fixes.
The bigger question, however, is how is that relevant? The code was contributed under the LGPL (it would have to be to meet the license requirements for modification). So unless JBoss wants to change the license then where does it need to know all the copyright owners? In order to enforce the license? They can enforce the license on all the parts that JBoss employees own. Even if they knew every author that is all they'd be able to enforce.
The FSF talks about copyright assignment, attribution of changes within files, etc for exactly this reason: to keep the chain of ownership clear and to avoid problems in identifying ownership. The clauses aren't in there on a whim or as a silly rule. They're there so the license can actually be enforced.In JBoss' case (and I suspect many others) they haven't followed the rules and ownership is probably unaccertainable for the codebase in total.
Except if you're not interested in establishing ownership, it doesn't matter. The license itself doesn't care about who owns the code. It does make it easier to enforce copyright on the work as a whole but you're just pointing out how it would be difficult for JBoss to do that. It doesn't make the license they are distributing JBoss under invalid.
Just figuring on patches e-mailed in, you can't rely on CVS. Figure in external code that was checked in "clean" without attribution and the problem grows (e.g. log4j code was checked in in this manner). And refactorings where people got tired of CVS limitations and just moved or renamed things raw (e.g. there's no way to track how they moved and changed at all because there's literally no way to track these types of changes).
All true but still completely irrelevant for the issue at hand.
The JBoss guys have blatantly ignored both the LGPL license and also the FSF recommendations. The end result is that they have a codebase where they probably can't enforce _any_ license. I don't know the Linux cases you cite but I have looked at the JBoss side.Seriously, think pragmatically about this. How do we know who owns what here? We know there are many cases where code checked in was not owned at all by the ID checking it in. This is not to say that any wrong doing was going on, just that the CVS record is fundamentally flawed and inaccurate and can't be used to determine ownership. JBoss Inc. literally can't comply because they don't know who owns what.
JBoss doesn't need to know the owner in order to comply with the license. In order to modify the code in the first place the LGPL requires that the modification be licensed under the LGPL. This creates a work which, in it's entirety, is licensed under the LGPL. There is no need to know who ownes the individual bits. Again, this is hardly something which only JBoss suffers from. The Linux kernel has many more contributors and significantly more code and no one (particularly large companies with lots of lawyers who have examined the situation) is claiming that the Linux kernel can't be distributed under the GPL.
And probably in many cases owners can't take action either because they haven't taken basic steps to keep to assert ownership.Try this exercise, Chris. Take a random file out of JBoss and copy it to some random BSD code base. There are many source files in JBoss that can be used independently or only with a small number of related classes/interfaces.Now tell me - who's going to go after you for infringement? How could you determine this? How could the owners prove that they own it?
The owner of the code can go after me for copyright infringement. They're the only ones who could ever do so under any license. Even if JBoss knew who the owner was (assuming it wasn't them) they couldn't take me to court over someone else's code. Just like you can't take someone to court for infringeing on Apple's copyrights. What you seem to be missing is that you can dispute any unregistered copyright. Which is why the FSF also recommends that you register your copyrights; this ensures (theoretically, you can also get into a situation like SCO v Novell where both The SCO Group and Novell have registered a copyright on the same codebase) that the owner is a known entity. Otherwise you're going to need to offer some proof that you were the original author.
On an even larger scale, however, go talk to the Project Gutenberg folks about trying to find out who owns out of print books. Or go and figure out who owns out of print movies. Through multiple mergers, acquisitions, companies selling divisions and various assets, it can be impossible to find out who actually owns a work. The company which owns it may not even be aware that they own it. This is a problem with copyright in general, but it is in no way relevant to the issue at hand. The only way to fix it would be to require up to date registration data with the Library of Congress or the work falls into the public domain. I'd personally support such a measure in copyright law since it would immediately enrich the public domain and potentially rescue many works which have literally disappeared.
If the owner of part of JBoss actually feels that they are not complying with the license, why aren't they taking JBoss to court over copyright infringment? The owner of the Netfilter code (commonly known as the iptables facility in the Linux kernel) has gotten multiple injunctions against large corporations for copyright infringement. Here's one example: http://www.netfilter.org/news/2004-03-02-fsc-gpl.html. I hope you don't go and claim that Fujitsu-Siemens doesn't have competant lawyers now.
Anyways, the issue at hand, whether or not JBoss is honoring the LGPL, does not require any knowledge of the owners of any individual bit of code. Feel free to contemplate the problems not knowing the owners might cause, but it doesn't make the license invalid.
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Message #187529
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Because (and this is true for all licenses) whether or not you are in compliance with the license is more or less at the whim of the copyright holder. You do realize that Rickard is the original copyright holder of quite a few of the JBoss source files, do you?That is true but you still have the data. Just because CVS handles moves and renames badly doesn't make the original metadata go away. Maybe, but the metadata is no longer attached to the file, let alone prominently. This IS a violation of the license.In the open source world people are very often known by their handle. Just because you don't know who "user57" is doesn't mean that "user57" doesn't know and that the project maintainers don't know. "user57" looks like a stand-in for a deleted user with ID 57 and not like a real handle, but it sure may be a real user name nevertheless. But your point doesn't have any legal validity. You aren't one of the parties that needs to be aware of whether it is the original file or not. As long as those parties are happy then there is no problem. It's not me we are arguing about here. Rickard obviously isn't very happy, and THAT could become a problem for JBoss the company.
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Message #187531
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Because (and this is true for all licenses) whether or not you are in compliance with the license is more or less at the whim of the copyright holder.
You do realize that Rickard is the original copyright holder of quite a few of the JBoss source files, do you?
Yes I do, and if he feels he has a case then I encourage him to bring suit against JBoss. Publicly posting factually incorrect information on a blog, however, doesn't do anyone any good.
That is true but you still have the data. Just because CVS handles moves and renames badly doesn't make the original metadata go away. Maybe, but the metadata is no longer attached to the file, let alone prominently. This IS a violation of the license.
Again, this requires interpretation. You're suggesting that an artifact of how CVS works causes the metadata associated with the file to be lost. I'm suggesting that because it's an artifact of CVS then you'd need to look at the complete history of the file, including "different" files which are only different because of how CVS works. Is one view more valid than the other? I'd say that would be a court issue to decide if it came to it.
In the open source world people are very often known by their handle. Just because you don't know who "user57" is doesn't mean that "user57" doesn't know and that the project maintainers don't know. "user57" looks like a stand-in for a deleted user with ID 57 and not like a real handle, but it sure may be a real user name nevertheless.
And, even if it isn't a real user id (I don't know one way or another either), does that mean that the user is no longer identifiable? There may be a record associating such placeholder ids with the original user, I don't know. But this getting pretty far into the realm of speculation.
But your point doesn't have any legal validity. You aren't one of the parties that needs to be aware of whether it is the original file or not. As long as those parties are happy then there is no problem. It's not me we are arguing about here. Rickard obviously isn't very happy, and THAT could become a problem for JBoss the company.
Sure, that could cause a problem for JBoss. Based on the August thread which seems to have caused this, however, it looks a lot more like Rickard doesn't know what he's talking about. And as I said above, if he does feel that he has a valid case, I would encourage him to go to court and litigate the issue, not attempt to create FUD around JBoss.
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Message #187532
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Chris, stop generalizing. Where you say:
The patches, for example, may or may not be large enough or "expressive" enough to even receive copyright (which is the part that may require court precendent). Changes like translating documentation and fixing misspellings (both of which are creating a derivative work, not creating a new expressive work of their own), for example, would probably not meet the bar for copyright. Neither would small bug fixes.
Accept that there are patches that were quite large contributed via e-mail that do get copyright, OK? I don't care about various BSDs and Linux. JBoss has tons of code that doesn't have attribution in the source files and the CVS record is useless. They've broken both LGPL licenses and various BSDish licenses, and they almost certainly do not have the information to come into compliance.
So what happens? In practice, nothing. But what it really means is that the license terms are crap and can be ignored at will without fear of penalty.
At the same time, accept that JBoss people checked stuff in which was originally not authored by them (and without attribution).
The point here is very simple: Their CVS isn't going to tell you ownership. There's nothing in the files that shows you ownership.
JBoss doesn't need to know the owner in order to comply with the license. In order to modify the code in the first place the LGPL requires that the modification be licensed under the LGPL. This creates a work which, in it's entirety, is licensed under the LGPL. There is no need to know who ownes the individual bits. Again, this is hardly something which only JBoss suffers from. The Linux kernel has many more contributors and significantly more code and no one (particularly large companies with lots of lawyers who have examined the situation) is claiming that the Linux kernel can't be distributed under the GPL.
Now you're getting circular in your arguments. Let's make it really simple Chris: right now Jboss is not in compliance on many fronts. They've copied lots of people's code without attribution notices. They've altered submitted code w/out required notices. On many levels the licenses involved were plain ignored.
At the same time, ownership is so muddied that it's effectively hopeless at this point in time.
See what I'm getting at? JBoss has ignored various license terms at will for a long time with no penalties. They figure as long as they provide source, they're good. But in doing so the ownership has become badly tangled as well.
The end result is that probably anyone could copy JBoss code and do whatever they like with it, LGPL or no. I'm not a laywer and don't advocate it, but the facts are plain nontheless. Whatever the law says JBoss ignores licenses and no ill effects accumulate. Most likely other 3rd parties can do the same.
This comes back to the original point. JBoss is carefree about violating licenses as they feel like it, and show no signs of coming into compliance. But at the same time they visciously go after companies when they feel they're rights are being stepped on. See the pattern here? Ignore other people's rights and vigorously defend your own?
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Message #187536
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FUD?
<--
Based on the August thread which seems to have caused this, however, it looks a lot more like Rickard doesn't know what he's talking about. And as I said above, if he does feel that he has a valid case, I would encourage him to go to court and litigate the issue, not attempt to create FUD around JBoss.
-->
So even if he feels that he is right, he can't write about it, his only option should be (costly) litigation?
IMHO, it is a very smart move (he now has posted his motivation, in case anyone questions), potentially more harmfull than litigation (whic might follow),
Potential (and current) JBOSS customers sure would like to know how much the open source savings will end up costing them for the long haul (here - there is free JBOSS ... and by the way you can only buy consulting from us)
Oh, forgot, Jboss doesn't like it when refered to as a consulting company.
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Message #187541
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Again, this requires interpretation. You're suggesting that an artifact of how CVS works causes the metadata associated with the file to be lost. I'm suggesting that because it's an artifact of CVS then you'd need to look at the complete history of the file, including "different" files which are only different because of how CVS works. Is one view more valid than the other?
I argue that even if we assume for a moment that access to a public CVS server would be enough to be in compliance with section 2b) of the LGPL, the design of CVS inherently will bring this argument to its knees. It's simply to difficult and error-prone to get to the required data in the cases I mentioned. Having to hunt down this information on some remote CVS server is not "prominent notice", nor does it make the files themselves carry these notices.
Interestingly, CVS has a feature where commit comments can be attached to the managed source files automatically during checkin.
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Message #187542
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Rickard Oberg creates "TheJBossIssue" blog
Chris, stop generalizing. Where you say:The patches, for example, may or may not be large enough or "expressive" enough to even receive copyright (which is the part that may require court precendent). Changes like translating documentation and fixing misspellings (both of which are creating a derivative work, not creating a new expressive work of their own), for example, would probably not meet the bar for copyright. Neither would small bug fixes.
Accept that there are patches that were quite large contributed via e-mail that do get copyright, OK?
Why? I've worked on a very large open source project and we never received a single patch of that variety which would receive copyright. They were all trival bug fixes and the like. The biggest contributions we received were translations of documentation. It's your argument, you need to prove it, not tell me to accept it. Which open source projects have you been a maintainer of which regularly received contributions from outside the core team large enough to warrant copyright?
I don't care about various BSDs and Linux. JBoss has tons of code that doesn't have attribution in the source files and the CVS record is useless.
Says you. Where is your proof? And not caring about much larger projects which have been subjected to lawsuits which disprove your argument is telling.
They've broken both LGPL licenses and various BSDish licenses, and they almost certainly do not have the information to come into compliance.
Again, says you. Where is your proof? Which bit of code do you own in JBoss which you are claiming they aren't honoring the license on? If you can't point it out, then your just making wild claims. Even better, show me a lawsuit regarding this issue. I mean, if someone is being so injured by JBoss's actions they'd file suit, right?
So what happens? In practice, nothing. But what it really means is that the license terms are crap and can be ignored at will without fear of penalty.
Go tell that to Fujitsu-Siemans. I'm sure they'd be happy to know that they shouldn't have settled. You might also want to tell Apple (KHTML), IBM (all sorts of various Linux bits), Nokia (Gtk and GNOME) ... should I go? These are all huge companies with lots of lawyers which have examined the situation and think you are wrong. On the other side we have Mike Spille who has, to date offered his opinion. Yes, you read it correctly, billions of dollars on the line in one hand, Mike Spille's opinion on the other.
At the same time, accept that JBoss people checked stuff in which was originally not authored by them (and without attribution).The point here is very simple: Their CVS isn't going to tell you ownership. There's nothing in the files that shows you ownership.
Again, it's up to you to show that some code deserving of copyright was checked in by someone other than the author. So far I've got nothing but your say so and, quite frankly, I don't believe a word you say.
JBoss doesn't need to know the owner in order to comply with the license. In order to modify the code in the first place the LGPL requires that the modification be licensed under the LGPL. This creates a work which, in it's entirety, is licensed under the LGPL. There is no need to know who ownes the individual bits. Again, this is hardly something which only JBoss suffers from. The Linux kernel has many more contributors and significantly more code and no one (particularly large companies with lots of lawyers who have examined the situation) is claiming that the Linux kernel can't be distributed under the GPL. Now you're getting circular in your arguments. Let's make it really simple Chris: right now Jboss is not in compliance on many fronts. They've copied lots of people's code without attribution notices. They've altered submitted code w/out required notices. On many levels the licenses involved were plain ignored.
I'm not getting circular, I'm pointing out a massive flaw in your argument. Your response is to say that I'm wrong. Great come back. How are they not compliant? Which code have they copied without attribution? Where have | |
