
VMware joins Linux Foundation: what about the GPL? - JoshTriplett
http://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20170308-vmware-linuxfoundation/
======
bcantrill
I understand the consternation -- I have very mixed feelings about the Linux
Foundation (I am on the TOC of the CNCF, an LF project), but the reality is
that as a 501(c)(6) they are much better resourced than the 501(c)(3)s
dedicated to open source. In my opinion, the LF therefore represents our
(current) best shot to achieve some common good, and (speaking personally), I
have resolved to work from within the LF to make it more useful to the broader
constituency of open source communities. (As a concrete example, I championed
the LF/CNCF acquiring and relicensing RethinkDB[1].)

Similarly, I think applying a purity test to the LF would be
counterproductive: it would end up refusing essentially everyone's money and
becoming the FSF or Apache Foundation -- two flat-broke 501(c)(3)s. (Aside,
individuals should never ever donate to the LF; donate to a 501(c)(3)
instead.)

To sum: I would rather have VMware in than out, and then influence the LF to
abide by its broader open source constituency, funding projects at the grass
roots that are the lifeblood of open source -- but I also understand those
that would view taking VMware's money as selling out that constituency!

[1] [https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-liberation-of-
rethinkdb](https://www.joyent.com/blog/the-liberation-of-rethinkdb)

~~~
bigbugbag
Good for you that you're TOC of CNCF an LF project, but I didn't understand a
single sentence you wrote. Maybe try using actual words and explaining what
may seem obvious to you because it's probably not to others reading you.

~~~
drostie
Approximate η-expansion:

"I understand your outrage, and I also have mixed feelings about the role of
the Linux Foundation in open-source. I am on the Technical Oversight Committee
of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation which is a Linux Foundation project.
However I do want to say that the Linux Foundation is a not-for-profit
'business league' under US law, rather than a not-for-profit 'charitable
organization.' The fact that they have these partner companies which make them
up, gives them a lot more money than the open-source charitable organizations
can provide. Because they have more money, in my opinion the Linux Foundation
has the potential to do a lot more good for open source, and so my personal
goal is to work from within the Linux Foundation to help it do that. For
example, I was very vocal about us buying and open-sourcing RethinkDB. What
you're asking for is for us to test the 'purity' of businesses before we let
them join the league that is the Linux Foundation. That is a bad idea. It just
means fewer businesses will join the league and less of their money will be
available for open-source. The Free Software Foundation and Apache Foundation
are good examples of similar things: charitable organizations which now do not
have very much money because they are not willing to be 'tainted' by big
business. On the flip side, please do not donate to the business league as a
private individual; give your resources to these charitable organizations who
need it instead. But I would rather have VMWare be one of the league
contributors than not have their money. We can always work from within the
Linux Foundation to say 'you have to listen to these people who want Linux to
remain committed to open-source,' so that they keep funding these projects
that keep our open-source movement going. On the other hand I understand why
you think that taking VMWare's money is essentially 'selling out,' saying that
we care more about the money than about our principles."

~~~
bcantrill
That was absolutely awesome -- thank you! (And apologies to those for whom I
was being too cryptic!)

~~~
drostie
Consider it me paying forward the joy I got from Fork Yeah!, which is still
somewhere in my top 10 tech-talks of all time. :)

------
ChuckMcM
While I respect the angst the author feels, this snippet ... _"... allowing an
entity like VMware to join, despite their many years long disrespect for the
most basic principles of the FOSS Community (such as: Following the GPL and
its copyleft principle), really is hard to understand and accept."_

I think this presumes a different rationale on the part of the Linux
foundation. The answer to the question "Here is some money, can I join?" is
always yes. And with enough money it is "heck yes!"

And that leads to _" I guess I was being overly naive :("_

Which is yes, you were.

Why do politicians, managers, and ex-lovers all have to just "put their
differences aside and move on." ? Because if you don't you can't make any
progress even if the penultimate step here was one that hurt you badly.

The best way to score this is that VMWare is going to participate in a forum
with others who can help guide them to a better compliance record. Both to
understand why compliance is good, and to alleviate fears that VMWare might
have that complying would leave them vulnerable. What they were before is in
the past, now you have a way to work with them to move forward. Consider the
alternative that they don't join, they continue to be huge FOSS scofflaws and
continue to provide some sort of 'you don't really have to comply' example to
others who might be uncomfortable with the GPL. When you look at it this way,
it really is a good thing.

~~~
rrdharan
> alleviate fears that VMWare might have that complying would leave them
> vulnerable

I don't think this is the case. VMware (and their lawyers) have studied the
GPL and genuinely do not believe they are not complying with its requirements.

This isn't the typical "shady hardware vendor embeds modified busybox"
situation where the (in this case alleged) lack of compliance is out of
laziness, fear or ignorance.

[Disclaimer: as per my other comment, I used to work at VMware, and am
inherently biased in that sense, although I also happen to agree with VMware
on the whole ESXi/vmklinux situation.]

~~~
paxcoder
I didn't study the busybox connection, but why would anyone think vmkernel and
vmklinux could be "reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves" especially considering the source from the sfconservancy site
linked to in the article?

~~~
rrdharan
I don't think anyone considers vmklinux independent, and indeed vmklinux is
itself open-sourced (in a kludgey but compliant way):
[https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=ESX...](https://my.vmware.com/group/vmware/details?downloadGroup=ESXI650-OSS&productId=614)

The debate has always been about whether the vmkernel is itself a derived work
of vmklinux or Linux.

~~~
belorn
Can vmware replace the linux kernel and vmklinux, and still have a functioning
vmkernel?

Ie, for some definition of independence and separation, how independent are
vmklinux and vmkernel, and how separated are they in function and use? Could
one simply remove the linux parts and plug in a different unix like kernel?

With two independent work I should be able to put them each on a different
computer and have a meaningful result from doing so. Two work can have a
cumulative effect when brought together, but independent they need to still be
meaningful and working on their own. If I arbitrary separate a program, I can
obviously not do so since they will not start, function proper or produce a
meaningful effect on their own.

------
throw2016
A lot of the Linux bodies with community sounding names like Linux foundation
are actually groups of corporate interests. I had looked up some of the people
behind these foundations a couple of years ago and they came across as
careerists with little connection to Linux, open source or Linux advocacy.

There is nothing wrong with this, but the names of these bodies should reflect
their interests. A name like 'Linux Foundation' should be the flagship
organization promoting Linux and open source globally as well as user and
developer interests. Some thing like 'Linux Industry Group' is a better
reflection of the work Linux foundation does.

Ultimately its high time end-users organize some kind of funded entity to
support open source projects and protect user interests. Not just one but
multiple such bodies. Without that the interests of those funding projects,
developers and industry bodies will triumph and you will just have to accept
what ever is 'decided' for you.

I think forums like this should also gently encourage all the thousands of
startups who dip into the Linux ecosystem pool but do not contribute anything
back even after they are successful, sometimes wildly. Github and Redis comes
to mind. That doesn't feel right.

Hiring people working on specific open source projects is good, but its not
support, its protecting your own interests. Non-conditional funding so they
can continue to do their work that you have benefited from is better.

Its like a river, if you keep on taking from it eventually there will be
nothing left.

~~~
pythonaut_16
Who will fund it? And if you have startups like Github and Redis funding it,
how is that free from the accusations you level at the Linux Foundation?

~~~
throw2016
I am not leveling accusations at Linux foundation, I am just saying the name
is not reflective of its interests and to clarify there is nothing wrong with
its interests.

Its just end users also need to organize to fund and promote open source.
There is a perception these things are taken care of but they are not, most
Linux groups are industry bodies.

If Github benefits from Redis and its just one of hundreds of examples then
there is a moral case to be made to support it and give back to open source in
someway so the stream continues to flow. In this case Github had not even
bothered to reach out to the Redis author, so there is something wrong here in
how successful startups are engaging and using open source.

------
andrewshadura
Well, it's sort of well-known that key Linux Foundation figures are openly
against GPL enforcement, even in its most harmless forms such as those SFC
does.

------
arca_vorago
GPLv3 is the fix, but Torvalds refuses to apply it to linux... root of the
problem imho. When I can have a gplv2 linux on my samsung TV that gets rooted
by the CIA but I can't root it without bricking it, you know it's time to
switch to gplv3.

~~~
gizmo686
Setting aside the political issue (eg. Torvalds says he prefers GPLv2 for the
kernel), is it even _possible_ to change to GPLv3 at this point. Linux doesn't
do copyright assignment, which means that they would need to track down and
get permission from everyone who has contributed (or remove their
contributions) in order to re-license.

~~~
nsajko
Pretty sure you can't "remove someone's contribution", because derivative
works preserve copyright.

~~~
azrazalea
Idk if lawyers have weighed in, but many open source contributors are
definitely under the impression that if you rewrite/remove all contributions
of a contributor you are then free to relicense the resulting work without
their permission.

------
jdanisek
A 501c6 like the LF has to accept any member at a membership level so long as
they comply with the Bylaws and policies. There are antitrust issues if they
selectively blocked someone.

Also, consider that the LF may now be helping VMware with their compliance
issues. They have many programs to help companies build compliance processes
and tooling - is the author suggesting VMware can never right its wrongs?
Would we say the same thing about Intel who wasn't that great in its initial
Linux journey? Just turn them away for trying to get better?

------
guelo
The GPL is just incidental to Linux at this point. Linux is a collaboration
between dozens of giant corporations many of which actually hate the GPL. The
success of the Linux Foundation is in convincing all those companies that the
viral nature of the GPL has been neutralized and it is safe to use it in their
proprietary products. There is no idealism remaining but Linux is still an
amazing achievement that benefits us all.

~~~
rini17
What benefits? Only "benefits" that I can see are distributed very unevenly -
strong entities like Microsoft can extract patent fees from Linux users,
despite they contributed almost nothing. On the other end users like you and
me are blocked from fixing the software built on GPL components on the devices
they own. Which was the very situation GPL was intended to prevent.

~~~
trome
Pretty much, why can't I run a modern kernel on the average device running
Linux, whether that be an IP Camera, or a smartphone? Why are we forced to run
ancient, unpatched & insecure software by Qualcomm, LG, Samsung & Google?

~~~
AstralStorm
Technically, you can run new also insecure software by yourself on most
Samsung Exynos devices at the very least, including the bootloader. Includes
new kernel versions. See: [http://linux-
exynos.org/wiki/Main_Page](http://linux-exynos.org/wiki/Main_Page)

Qualcomm is much more iffy, there is some work on integrating support to
mainline but it's only beginning.

You lose the warranty bit and still cannot replace FCC-approved modem
firmware, because certification reasons.

------
chappi42
I almost didn't read to the end (got annoyed). Isn't it wonderful that 'Linux'
is able to be friends with companies and welcome them?

So many slanderous remarks, 'you can abuse Linux', 'the Linux Foundations has
no ethical concerns', 'work with the community, and not against it'. And
shouldn't there have been mentioned that VMware afaiu won a (first?) court
case?

The questions are important of course. Here a imo much more fruitful reading,
likely well-known: [https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-
discuss/...](https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-
discuss/2016-August/003580.html)

~~~
chappi42
why downvote?

------
mtgx
_> It sends the following messages:

\- you can abuse Linux, the GPL and copyleft while still being accepted amidst
the Linux Foundation Members

\- it means the Linux Foundations has no ethical concerns whatsoever about
accepting such entities without previously asking them to become clean

\- it also means that VMware has still not understood that Linux and FOSS is
about your actions, particularly the kind of choices you make how to
technically work with the community, and not against it._

I think all of those apply to Microsoft, too. The Linux Foundation tainted its
image when it accepted Microsoft without even demanding that it "becomes
clean," as the author says, in regards to its exploitative use of patents
against OEMs that dare to use Linux-based operating systems.

~~~
AlexeyBrin
Microsoft provides a lot of open source software with open source licenses,
usually MIT.

~~~
ergo14
Microsoft also threatens lawsuits to Android companies if I'm not mistaken.

~~~
monochromatic
And?

~~~
ergo14
And I find it interesting that people suddenly claim MS is now the "good guy"
and is friendly to OS community.

~~~
petre
It's not the "good guy" just a lot different than the Balmer era M$. At least
now they embraced open source instead of fighting against it and they do give
back to the community as opposed to VMWare.

~~~
ergo14
[http://techrights.org/2017/02/20/article-about-microsoft-
cul...](http://techrights.org/2017/02/20/article-about-microsoft-cult-
tactics/) \- Really?

------
bykovich
I gotta say that I think this is just not a big deal for most people. I
understand that FOSS ideals have appeal, I understand why people would like
them to be protected -- but at the end of the day, I do feel like FOSS
advocates, as well-meaning as they are, are perhaps investing their concern in
the wrong place. FOSS rhetoric is nice, but it just doesn't seem that
important.

~~~
rrdharan
I'm very biased, since I worked at VMware for nine years.

Nonetheless I disagree with you. I think it's worth actually pursuing this and
settling the VMware situation clearly. Uncertainty is rarely a good thing for
anyone in these kind of situations, and so I'm disappointed that there still
hasn't been a real ruling on the merits of the case.

Personally I remain convinced that the vmklinux/shim usage pattern is ok by
the letter of the license, but I can understand Harald Welte and Christopher
Hellwig's viewpoint.

~~~
mikekchar
As much as I agree with you, I think it is unlikely to be cleared up to any
great extent. In my mind, the main question of whether or not VMware is in
violation of the GPL rests pretty squarely on whether or not it is a derived
work. That definition, in a legal sense (AFAICT -- I'm not a lawyer) is
intentionally vague. Potential violations in this sense will almost certainly
have to be tested on a case by case basis. Which is frustrating for everyone.

Like you, I hope for a speedy resolution of the VMware situation, but I'm not
so confident that such a resolution will shine much light on similar issues in
the future.

