A Movement Builds as a Diverse Group of 14 Additional Leaders Seek Greater Predictability in Open Source Licensing
Amazon, Arm, Canonical, GitLab, Intel Corporation, Liferay, Linaro,
MariaDB, NEC, Pivotal, Royal Philips, SAS, Toyota and VMware commit to
provide a cure period for correcting license compliance issues in GPLv2
software
RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE:RHT) today announced that Amazon, Arm, Canonical,
GitLab, Intel Corporation, Liferay, Linaro, MariaDB, NEC, Pivotal, Royal
Philips, SAS, Toyota and VMware have joined the roster of community and
industry leaders in rejecting harsh tactics in the enforcement of open
source licenses by adopting the GPL
Cooperation Commitment. These commitments reflect the belief that
responsible compliance in open source licensing is important and that
license enforcement in the open source ecosystem operates by different
norms.
These 14 companies join other companies who previously made the
commitment: Red
Hat, Facebook, Google, and IBM made the initial commitment in November
2017 and were joined in March 2018 by CA
Technologies, Cisco, HPE, Microsoft, SAP, and SUSE.
Today’s announcement demonstrates the expanded breadth and depth of
support for the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Companies adopting the
commitment now span geographic regions, include eight Fortune 100
companies, and represent a wide range of industries from enterprise
software and hardware to consumer electronics, chip manufacturing to
cloud computing, and social networking to automotive. The companies
making the commitment represent more than 39 percent of corporate
contributions to the Linux kernel, including six of the top 10 corporate
contributors.1
The companies, projects and developers participating in the GPL
Cooperation Commitment have extended these rights because they believed
it was right for the community and the open source ecosystems in which
they participate and encourage other companies and developers to join
them. Red Hat applauds them on their forward-thinking actions.
The following companies have agreed to provide curative rights to
licensees of GPLv2 and LGPLv2 and 2.1-code that they license:
GPL Cooperation Commitment
These companies have committed to provide opportunities for their
licensees to correct errors in compliance with their GPLv2 and LGPLv2
and 2.1-licensed software before taking action to terminate the licenses
through the GPL
Cooperation Commitment. Version 2 of the General Public License
(GPLv2) and versions 2 and 2.1 of the Lesser General Public License
(LGPLv2) do not contain express “cure” periods to fix problems before
these licenses are terminated. This issue was addressed in version 3 of
the GPL (GPLv3) which added an opportunity to correct mistakes in
license compliance. In order to address the potential imbalance for
GPLv2 and LGPLv2-licensed code, these companies have adopted the cure
provisions from GPLv3 for their existing and future GPLv2 and
LGPLv2-licensed code. This means that users of GPLv2 and LGPLv2-licensed
code will have the same opportunity to fix errors as users of
GPLv3-licensed code.
Specifically, the commitment language adopted by each company is:
Before filing or continuing to prosecute any legal proceeding or
claim (other than a Defensive Action) arising from termination of a
Covered License, [Company] commits to extend to the person or entity
(“you”) accused of violating the Covered License the following
provisions regarding cure and reinstatement, taken from GPL version 3.
As used here, the term ‘this License’ refers to the specific Covered
License being enforced.
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your
license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a)
provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and
finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright
holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means
prior to 60 days after the cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is
reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the
violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have
received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that
copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your
receipt of the notice.
[Company] intends this Commitment to be irrevocable, and binding and
enforceable against [Company] and assignees of or successors to
[Company]’s copyrights.
[Company] may modify this Commitment by publishing a new edition on
this page or a successor location.
Definitions
‘Covered
License’ means the GNU General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2), the
GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 (LGPLv2.1), or the GNU
Library General Public License, version 2 (LGPLv2), all as published by
the Free Software Foundation.
‘Defensive Action’ means a legal proceeding or claim that [Company]
brings against you in response to a prior proceeding or claim initiated
by you or your affiliate.
‘[Company]’ means [Company] and its subsidiaries.
Supporting Quotes
Michael Cunningham, executive vice president and general counsel, Red
Hat
“We are pleased to honor open source community traditions
by encouraging this collaborative approach to license commitments among
our fellow participants in the open source ecosystem. We are also
grateful to the development community for having provided the
intellectual underpinnings of the approach to us and the other
companies. Many thanks to the Free Software Foundation, Linux
Foundation, Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board, Software Freedom
Conservancy, Software Freedom Law Center and all the others that helped
lead the way.”
Keith Bergelt, CEO, Open Invention Network
“Consistent with
OIN’s mission to provide freedom of action in Linux, we believe it is
important to reinforce the principle that IP enforcement should be
conducted in a manner that is rational and in consonance with the
collaborative process that occurs in open source software. We encourage
all participants in the OIN patent non-aggression community to also make
the GPL Cooperation Commitment.”
Adrian Cockroft, vice president, Cloud Architecture Strategy, Amazon
“Amazon
and AWS strongly support open source as a way to speed the rate of
innovation for our customers, developers, community, and partners. We
support changes to open source licensing that furthers the goal of
innovation and experimentation on behalf of open source users and
contributors.”
Mark Hambleton, vice president of open source software, Arm
“A
healthy, thriving open source software community is an essential enabler
for innovation across most technology market segments. We have already
supported the Linux kernel enforcement statement and we now make a
similar cure commitment for GPL and LGPL code. We encourage others to
support this movement as we strive for a consistent, fair approach to
open source license interpretation and enforcement.”
Sid Sijbrandij, co-founder and CEO, GitLab
"At GitLab we’re
committed to a 30-day cure period for GPLv2 because we want a world
where everyone can contribute without worrying they won't have a chance
to remedy any mistakes they made.”
Jorge Ferrer, vice president of Engineering, Liferay
“Open
source software and communities have always been fundamental to
Liferay’s mission of building a vibrant business, making technology
useful and investing in communities. We're proud be part of the pledge
to apply GPLv3’s non-compliance cure provisions to GPLv2, LGPLv2 and
LGPLv2.1 because we believe it will provide more fairness and
predictability for developers using open source software."
David Rusling, chief technology officer, Linaro
“It is in
Linaro’s and the Arm ecosystem’s interests that the open source projects
that we are contributing to and testing remain fair, open and
collaborative. Linaro fully endorses and supports Red Hat’s cooperation
commitment initiative.”
Kaj Arnö, chief evangelist, MariaDB Corporation
“Open source
is the way of the future and we support removing barriers for users to
innovate with open source. That’s why we are proud to adopt this
common-sense remedy period for fixing license violations.”
Keiichi Seki, senior manager, Open Source Program Office, NEC
Corporation
“As a member of open source development communities
and also a member of open source foundations, NEC has been making
considerable efforts to help expand its ecosystem for more than 15
years. NEC believes this Cooperation Commitment will deepen the
collaboration between industry and community. That will cause
acceleration of further innovation in the open source ecosystem.”
Ian Andrews, vice president of products, Pivotal
“Pivotal is
happy to join in the diverse group of companies and technology leaders
incorporating the 30-day cure period included in GPLv3 into GPLv2 and
LGPLv2. We strongly believe that this approach to enforcement will
further collaboration and participation in open source development,
fairness, and the adoption of open source software that underlies
everything that we do.”
Jako Eleveld, head of IP Licensing, Royal Philips
“Royal
Philips values and supports the extension of a cure period for users of
GPLv2 licensed software. Enabling users to correct errors and avoid
license termination provides greater legal certainty for implementers.
For this reason, and as a proud founder of Open Invention Network, Royal
Philips is joining the list of companies making the cure commitment.”
John Boswell, chief legal counsel, SAS
“Open source has
become an important part of advancing new technologies that impact how
we work and live. But, as with any software, there are risks when it
comes to license infringement issues, and it’s important that all
parties involved are protected so that they can continue to collaborate
and develop new source code. This is why we are supporting Red Hat’s
efforts to promote greater predictability in open source license
enforcement. Doing so gives the open source community the security
needed to be innovative when designing new software.”
Dirk Hohndel, chief open source officer, VMware
"We believe
that open source is an essential building block of today’s technology
solutions. The GPL is one of the most common open source licenses used
and having a predictable and collaborative approach to enforcing that
license will help all of us to encourage continued growth in this space.
The GPL Cooperation Commitment is a key step to further foster open
source software adoption."
Connect with Red Hat
About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat is the world's leading provider of open source software
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high-performing cloud, Linux, middleware, storage and virtualization
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enterprises, partners, and open source communities, Red Hat helps create
relevant, innovative technologies that liberate resources for growth and
prepare customers for the future of IT. Learn more at http://www.redhat.com.
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Red Hat is a trademark or registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc. or
its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Linux® is the
registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
VMware is a registered trademark or trademark of VMware, Inc. in the
U.S. and other countries.
1 Based on data from the 2017 LINUX KERNEL DEVELOPMENT REPORT
published in October 2017.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180716005186/en/
Red Hat, Inc.
Stephanie Wonderlick, 571-421-8169
swonderl@redhat.com
Source: Red Hat, Inc.