As linux and free and open source software becomes more and more mainstream, I can't help but remember what the Internet was like before Al Gore "invented" it.  Little to no spam, no penis enlargement adds, no Viagra pitches, searches turned up relevant results, newsgroups were the place to meet and discuss, no pop ups, a decidedly different feel.  The Internet felt like an academic/scientific community (an porn).

After Al Gore "invented" the Internet, meaning commercialized it, the Internet became something that only slightly resembles what I used to surf (porn still thrives).

Not that I am complaining, I make a good living providing commercial services over the Internet today.

Now I see the commercialization of free and open source software.  Slowly but surely, free/open source software and the culture that invented it is disappearing.

I forsee the day coming that people like me cannot post simple GPL'ed apps like yasuck or yaview, because the lawyers will put up too many barriers.  Some day it will just be too expensive a proposition to release a simple GPL'ed app.  Their will be too many barriers - I might step on some patent, I might not be able to afford to indemnify people from patent claims since I cannot afford indemnification.  Only large players like IBM, Novell, Red Hat, and Sun will be able to "afford" to release software under a free/open source license.

This is what I believe to be the most effective attack upon free/open source software.  The SCOs and Microsofts of the world don't really need to attack free/open source with IP lawsuits, the threat will suffice.  Motivating lawyers to get involved will suffice.  All the SCOs and Microsofts have to do is remove the ability/motivation of individual developers by making it too expensive in legal costs to force the price of free/open source up.  Microsoft does not have to attack free/open source directly, all they have to do is make it cost the same financially and cost more in legal expenses.

What is unbelievable to me is the fact that free/open source software is not any more vulnerable to outrageous legal costs as any software.  Just think of all of the small/medium software shops that might develop VB  apps for their own clients.  These developers and their clients are no less vulnerable to excessive litigation expense as any free/open source software distributor.  Contact any local small/medium developer in your locale and ask them if they provide indemnification for their products.  For example, if they write you a custom shopping cart application and the backend processing to handle it - how many patents might be held by others to sql triggers they use in your customized app?  It is not just the free/open source community that is at risk.

Which brings me to the topic of the current article.  Frankly, when lawyers are involved I am deeply skeptical.  The first time I visited the grokline web site, I was struck by how slick it was worded.  The text reads more like language you would see in a contract than a F/OSS project.  I have never seen anything like it in any other F/OSS related project.  The heavy legalese context immediately set off alarm bells for me.

Now add a few more anomalies to the mix.  One minute the project is owned by one person, the next minute it appears to be owned by OSRM, there has been no explanation other than it is in the business interest of OSRM to host it.  Each project seems to tie into the other, yet one is supposed to be owned by PJ, the other by OSRM.  They state they are writing for the "policy makers", well, what exactly are they going to tell the "policy makers"?  Will they be encouraging policy that benefits their insurance business, or free/open source?  What are they encouraging policy makers in Europe, no software patents or "sane" software patents?  How exactly will the free/open source community benefit from what they are doing?  The software archive appears to be a product developed by lawyers, for lawyers.  Well, who has access to the data, and what if the data itself is damning to free/open source?  Will IP law firms who are hostile to free/open source be sold access to data and learn exactly which 286 patents threaten the linux kernel?

These are all questions I can't find answers to.  I guess I am supposed to just trust that these relatively unknown VC/Lawyers know what is best for free/open source and are acting in the best interest of free/open source.  I am just supposed to take the contradictory words of paralegal who worked for them and a lone crapflooder on ip-wars.  I have read many interviews with Eggers where he implies that prominent free/open source leaders endorse OSRM's insurance product, yet I have not read any direct quotes from any of them who are not financially tied to OSRM.

What I would like to see is the OSI come up with some sort of "seal of approval" for companies like OSRM.  I assume OSI has a trademark on the words "open source", it would be nice to see them hold companies to a code of ethics before being allowed to commercially use that trademark.  OSI does it for licenses, it would be great to see them come up with a way to do it for companies.  Something like this would help relieve a lot of my skepticism.  An open source Better Business Bureau.

There are quite a few companies that I already feel "get it" when it comes to free/open source.  IBM is at the top of the list.  I trust pretty much any member of OSDL, for that matter.

First Email to OSRM (3.75 / 4) (#143)
by nono2sco on Sun Feb 13th, 2005 at 22:55:44 PDT
Date:     Thu, 10 Feb 2005 14:13:42 -0800 (PST)
From:    "nono2sco" <nono2sco@yahoo.com>  
Subject:    Grokline/OSRM/Software Rights Archive
To:    info@osriskmanagement.com

Mr. St. Clair,

I have been following the Grokline project sponsored
by OSRM and recently became aware of a company called
Software Rights Archive that appears to be connected
with OSRM.

http://www.srarchive.com/

SRA is described as:

"The Software Rights Archive serves as a trusted,
objective source of historical information about the
development of software from its origins through the
present day. The Archive contains a large library of
licensed source code, rarer forms of technical
literature and documentation, and oral histories by
numerous key individual contributors to the
development of information technology, with a
particular focus on contributors to the Unix and the
Gnu/Linux Operating systems. Archive information is
indexed, tagged and organized electronically into
topical Timelines so that it can be searched in a
highly efficient manner using sophisticated search
methodologies.

The Software Rights Archive is designed to provide
intellectual property counsel researching issues of
software copyrights, trade secrets, patents, etc. with
actionable information available nowhere else."

I am wondering if this information archive is based on
or is the information OSRM has collected via Grokline?
or are there multiple archives?

I am also wondering if this is the same OSRM/Grokline
information, is it intended to be sold or put to other
uses different than what OSRM currently intends?

Thank you for your time,

Interview About Patents with Dan Ravicher
Saturday, January 10 2004 @ 01:43 AM EST

OSRM To Offer Vendor-Neutral Indemnification -- FORM
Tuesday, January 13 2004 @ 03:01 AM EST

Groklaw's New Group Project -- The Timeline Project
Wednesday, February 04 2004 @ 09:36 AM EST

This project is highly complex and we anticipate it may well take a full year to complete. I will manage the "front-end" and post the timeline in small draft sections for public comment as we develop it; OSRM has agreed to support me by doing much of the "backend" work, including identifying and prioritizing areas where further historical research or documentary support would be desirable, and tagging, indexing, and storing relevant information for the timeline as it comes in from contributors. But the project is ours and belongs to Groklaw, and it will be our present to the world.

OSRM has simultaneously retained me, part-time, to work on their indemnification project as their Director of Litigation Risk Research. Not only that but they are donating a certain portion of my time to Groklaw, which will free me from having to do so much nonrelated paralegal work and be free to really focus for the next year on this project. I am very excited about the project and I hope we'll have fun too. Groklaw will continue, meanwhile, as it is, and it remains noncommercial and my personal baby. Well, more accurately, ours, because Groklaw wouldn't be much without you.

February 28 2004 First Internet Archive record of the Software Rights Archive web page

The Software Rights Archive serves as a trusted, objective source of historical information about the development of software from its origins through the present day. The Archive contains a large library of licensed source code, rarer forms of technical literature and documentation, and oral histories by numerous key individual contributors to the development of information technology, with a particular focus on contributors to the Unix and the Gnu/Linux Operating systems. Archive information is indexed, tagged and organized electronically into topical Timelines so that it can be searched in a highly efficient manner using sophisticated search methodologies.

Given the scoop ratings system he has shown us how to create tu member only discussion regions.  You post a top level post with a convention that you want tu members to zero it (e. g. "0:" and once it's hidden nothing underneath is visible to non-tu's.  It doesn't even get reposted to the hidden's when automated processes look for the lt 1's to repost.  (Please don't zero THIS, as I want scatboy to see that he's actually helped!)

To be fair to the initiator's mojo, the top level post should be empty and he should post his real discussion in a daughter post which those who think it worth discussing as tu-only should rate 5 to restore the initiator's mojo for the zero.  Then subsequent discussion should go on underneath that.

I'll repost this under the site discussion article where it's actually on-topic.

As he is now beginning to repeat himself without answering or addressing the substance of the responses, particularly the primary tenet that the issues rasied are mostly ones of ethics and community interest not law or (by third parties at least) civilly actionable, I have begun zero rating such as spam/crapflood.   I shall try use reasonable powers of discrimination and not zero anything I now see which contains new substance, but my overall interest in what he has to say (and the article topic generally) is relatively low, so I may make mistakes.  Please use your own judgement and feel free to rate to override my zero if you think there is new substance I may have missed.

Andersen is one of the founders of lunarpages and administrator of kickme.to. A suit seeking a search warrant was filed in Sweden against Andersen by the BSA in 2002 on behalf of Adobe, Autodesk, Macromedia and Microsoft. He was accused of aiding software piracy because kickme.to is often used as a redirector to warez sites. The initial search warrant was denied  and I can't find any more recent info.

lunarpages generally receives favorable reviews from the webhosting community.

Ip-wars comes up as the top page for "Software Rights Archive" (in quotes) on google.

It's too bad that most of the responses have nothing to do with the article.

Although all the OT on this probably pushed this up to the top of google.

    historical information about the development of software from its origins through the present day."

You need to prove a cause and effect relationship here. Simply saying one occured later in time then the other proves nothing.  I am not talking about scientific proof, it's enough for you to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

"The impression given is that donations are not to be for "commercial purposes" under the terms of the CCL non-commercial license:"

I read that paragraph and I didn't get that impression. How come you got that impression. the paragraph says nothing about non commercial use or the CCL.

Since you are here to bash OSRM over this issue one presumes you chose the most damnimg paragraph you can find and it turns out to be innocuous.

"So far the disclosure has been sketchy."

I don't think there is anything OSRM, Grokline, Groklaw, PJ, SRA or anybody even remotely involved with them can do to satisfy you. No matter what they say you will find some evil intent, no matter how many questions they answer you will still brood about "unanswered questions", no matter how much they publish the information will be "sketchy".

You make a lot of vague innuendos but in trying to be vague you meander without making a point.

Here is what I get out of your article.

Some random person who has some information about linux history gives that information to grokline.

that information then ends up in OSRM who then gives it to SRA. Is that what you are claiming here?

Then OSRM sells that same information but they are not supposed to because the information was all licenced under a non commercial CCL.

Does the SRA also sell that information? Are they getting that information from OSRM or grokline?

Are both the SRA and the OSRM violating the non commercial CCL license?

How about Eno river capital? Are they also violating the license?

This sentense is very odd.

"Given a level playing field and full disclosure, OSRM have every right to commercially use the Grokline material in whatever manner it chooses. "

Why is full disclosure and a level playing field a requirement for the commercial use of the grokline material? Do you mean that OSRM is stripping attribution from grokline articles and republishing them or selling them? What kind of a disclosure are you talking about? Also what do you mean by full disclosure? Who has to disclose what to whom in order to make this whole deal legal.