[ale] Are our Ethernet drivers in danger?

[Joseph A. Knapka]

Darin Lang wrote:
> 
> No law is violated.  GPL'd software IS available for the private sector.  In
> fact it is the only software that truly is available to the private sector.
> Someone perhaps does not understand the term private sector which means
> non-governmental sector. Nasa's research and development and in fact all
> governmental research is paid for by public money, therefore the technology,
> etc belongs to the people. That's the theory anyways, anybody can see that
> it doesn't work that way, or perhaps it does it just takes 30 years for it
> to be declassified (ecryption, GPS, etc).
> 
> What is actually being pushed below is M$'s latest propoganda campaign to
> discredit Open Source, Free Software Foundation, GPL, Linux, etc. The
> semantics are being attacked and it is being contended that the law means
> that the gov't should sell the tech to a "private company" (like, oh I don't
> know...hmmm....maybe M$) and give them a Monopoly on the
> technology/development. "private company" and "private sector" are two
> entirely different things.

I agree that MicroSoft's line on the entire Open Source issue
boils down to a huge steaming ball of FUD. However, there
are a couple of actual points buried in there.

An argument made elsewhere in the same forum, and which makes a lot
of sense to me, is that any product (software, human genome, etc)
whose development is funded by taxpayer dollars should be placed
in the public domain, unencumbered by any sort of IP restrictions
whatsoever, be they GPL, patents, or what have you. Private
companies could pick up those products and develop them further
using a proprietary model; open-sourcers could pick them up
and develop them further using the Open Source model. Everyone
wins, basically. Donald Becker's work would fall into this
category - though if this policy were in place, he probably
wouldn't have actually been able to develop the Linux Ethernet
drivers on NASA time, since a PD release would violate the
terms of the GPL.

I can see why for-profit developers are wary of the GPL - it
prevents them from making a profit on their own work which
is derived from GPL code. Sure, they're free not to use GPL
code in their products, but when a GPL'd piece of software
is the highest-quality candidate for a particular function,
everyone loses when a developer chooses *not* to use that
code in their product - especially the user. (And personally,
I expect that in almost every case, when a proprietary
solution and an Open Source solution for the same problem
exist, the Open Source solution will win on quality every
time, in the long run.) And the "derived work" language
in the GPL seems to prohibit one from even *looking at*
the code of a GPL'd product if one wants to avoid
GPL encumbrance. (Note: I don't really know what I'm
talking about when it comes to the legal implications
of the GPL, but my naive reading seems to largely agree
with the opinions of several knowledgable folks who
posted to the SV forum.)

-- Joe

> 
> -- or Consult the Oracle Temple of the Magic Chicken
>     http://MoonBughead.com/Oracle/
> Darin
> 
> on 7/3/01 6:21 PM, Joseph A. Knapka at jknapka at earthlink.net wrote:
> 
> > This is a quite from a message in the siliconvalley.com forum
> > on open-source vs commercial software:
> > <URL:
> > http://forums.siliconvalley.com/msgshow.cfm/msgboard=5968009897410465&msg=4951
> > 219996565791&page=1&idDispSub=5145094516046185>.
> >
> > Essentially, the argument is that Donald Becker's release under
> > GPL of Ethernet drivers developed with NASA funding is a violation
> > of federal law. Does anyone here know enough about IP law to have
> > an informed opinion about this matter?
> >
> >> | Search | Send to a Friend | Help
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> >>
> >> Author
> >> Message
> >>
> >>
> >> Brett_Glass
> >> 06/28/01 10:31 PM
> >>
> >> RE: RE: The government should not sponsor
> >> GPLed work
> >>
> >> You [Bruce Perens - JAK] write:
> >>
> >>
> >> NASA has sponsored a good deal of [work on Linux].
> >> For example, many of the ethernet drivers by Donald
> >> Becker were sponsored by NASA.
> >>
> >>
> >> If so, it is contrary to Federal law for those drivers to have been
> >> licensed under the GPL, because Federal law requires that the fruits of
> >> NASA's research and development be available for use by the private
> >> sector to develop new products. A vendor that wishes to use the code
> >> might well want to pursue this.
> >
> >
> >
> > -- Joe Knapka
> > "You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
> > can't MOVE for remote castles!" -- Lu Tze re. Uberwald
> > // Linux MM Documentation in progress:
> > // http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/vmoutline.html
> > * Evolution is an "unproven theory" in the same sense that gravity is. *
> > --
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> >
> 
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-- Joe Knapka
"You know how many remote castles there are along the gorges? You
 can't MOVE for remote castles!" -- Lu Tze re. Uberwald
// Linux MM Documentation in progress:
// http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/vmoutline.html
* Evolution is an "unproven theory" in the same sense that gravity is. *
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