5 FLOSS Business Models

The scope of this post is to analyse 5 companies Business Models according to  will be inspected in order to identify their business models among the the different FLOSS Business Models according to Daffara's Taxonomy:
- Liferay
- Eucalyptus
- BlackDuck
- Acquia
- Funambol

- Liferay: Liferay is an Open Source CMS (Content Management System), oriented to Enterprise. Among its main customers, some important Companies from very different business, such as Cisco, T-Mobile or Barclays.

  According to Daffara's Taxonomy on FLOSS Business Models, Liferay's business is oriented to being "Product Specialists".
  In particular, Liferay Inc. main revenues streams come from its superior knowledge on the Liferay CMS. According to their web, Liferay Inc. sells an Enterprise Edition of the product, which basically grants additional services to the customer, such as [1]:
  * Guaranteed SLA (Service Level Agreement), in two manners: Gold / Platinum [2], what means 9/5 or 24/7 support respectively.
  * Regular Service Packs
  * 5 Year End of Service Policy
  * Customer Portal
  * Optional Indemnification
  So, taking into account previous consideration, Liferay Inc. revenues streams come basically from additional services, such as [3]:
  * Enterprise Support
  * Training
  * Consulting

- Eucalyptus: Eucalyptus Systems Inc. is a company that sells AWS(Amazon Web Services)-compatible private and hybrid cloud services, by levering existing virtualized infrastructure to create on-demand cloud resource pools. These highly elastic pools can be dynamically scaled up or down as customers application workloads change [4]. Among its main customers, enterprises from very disparate environments such as Puma, Electronic Arts, Fujifilm or Nasa [5].

  According to Daffara's FLOSS Business Model Taxonomy, Eucalyptus Business Model is based on being "Platform provider". Eucalyptus Systems Inc. integrates services around a set of FLOSS projects, such as KVM or Xen Hypervisors,integrated in a single, tested and verified product, in particular, Eucalyptus. Despite the fact that Eucalyptus is FLOSS, the product name and logo are trademarks.
  Being a platform provider, Eucalyptus main revenues streams come from:
  On the one hand, a verification proccess to meet high quality standards, via key factors such as [6]:
  - Organizational Agility
  - Operational Efficiency
  - Infrastructure Flexibility
  - Dynamic Scalability
  - Resource Control
  - Cloud Reliability
  - Regulatory Compliance
  - Hybrid Capability
  - Workload Portability
  On the other hand, different type of services:
  * Customer Cloud Support Services, in two flavours, Standard and Premium, offering 9/5 and 24/7 customer support [7].
  * Cloud Consulting Services [8].
  * Training: offering different kind of training courses via Eucalyptus University, as well as certifications, and partnership programs [9].

- BlackDuck: According to its web, Black Duck Software helps developers build better software faster with the power of open source software and methods [10]. To do so, BlackDuck offers software and services, to provide basically Open Source Software Assessment, evaluating the use of open source technologies and methods, including community engagement, to achieve business and technology goals.

  Initially, Business Model around BlackDuck is not easily classifiable. On the one hand, they provide Open Source Software Assessment, which includes includes evaluation of a company software to analyse, by using the Black Duck KnowledgeBase, different aspects such as [11]:
  - Code search, scanning and analysis
  - Ongoing, automated license compatibility notification
  - Comparing software in any code base to the known universe of open source code, and reporting matches
  - Cataloguing hard data that documents the code origin
  So, taking into account previous considerations, BlackDuck Software company could be considered to have, taking into account Daffara's Taxonomy on FLOSS Business Model, a model associated to "Legal Consultancy", as they provide a KnowledgeBase to provide legal assessment for companies about complex problems derived from multiplicity of libre software licenses and their compatibilities.
  But, on the other hand, Black Duck Software offers the The Black Duck Suite, which is a comprehensive set of governance and compliance automation tools that enable development organizations to harness the power of open source technologies and methods, offering [12]:
  * Automated governance with a customizable approval work-flow.
  * Automated compliance with code scanning and auditing.
  * A catalogue for open source, commercial and internally-developed software that allows developers to easily find, track and reuse approved code.
  * Comprehensive code search to help developers find and choose components.
  * A tool integration framework that is repository-neutral, including easy integration with issue tracking and build systems, software configuration management systems (CMS) and tools.
  Apart from that, Black Duck Software has a division, named "Olliance Consulting", which provides OSMA (Open Source Management Assessment), offering a quick and easy way to learn about industry best practices and assess organizational readiness and governance maturity around FLOSS [13].
  So, from this perspective, Black Duck Software could be considered as well a "Consulting Company", offering Assessment about selection and evaluation of software products and services, by means of its Black Duck Suite and its Olliance Consulting Division.

- Acquia: Acquia company sells support on a FLOSS CMS, in particular, Drupal. In particular, they offer a set of different product, services and technical support for this FLOSS CMS.

  Regarding products, Acquia sells a set of free downloadable software, such as [14]:
  - Acquia Drupal: combines Drupal with useful modules to make web publishing faster, easier, and more feature-rich.
  - Acquia Dev Desktop: free package that installs Acquia Drupal on Windows and Mac OS X.
  - Drupal Commons: free software for building and hosting collaborative website.
  Regarding services, Acquia offers cloud Drupal based hosting [15]:
  - Dev Cloud: provides Drupal-optimized hosting with professional administration tools.
  - Managed Cloud: provides Drupal-optimized hosting in an elastic, high-availability configuration.
  - Drupal Gardens: a SaaS to design, build, and host Drupal-based sites.
  Acquia offers as well support services, such as [16]:
  - Acquia Network: Answers, Tools and Support for professionals who build websites using Drupal.
  - Drupal Support:  With Client Advisors that guide customers in quiet times and respond to urgent needs.
  - Remote Administration: assigning Drupal experts to apply fixes, monitor backups, and test changes to keep sites secure and up to date.
  Last, but not least, Acquia offers training around Drupal as well [17].
  Taking into account previous considerations, it can be asserted that Acquia's Business Model, according to Daffara's taxonomy of FLOSS Business Model, is being "Product Specialist", selling the "best knowledge here" around Drupal CMS.
  Their main revenues streams come from services such as:
  - Training and consulting
  - Specialized support
  - Remote assistance
  - Specialized cloud hosting services, but always, based on Drupal together with additional products made by Acquia.

- Funambol: Funambol FLOSS project started as a mobile cloud sync solution . The open source version consists of a sync server, clients/applications/SDKS for mobile devices and computers, and connector software to interface with other mobile systems [18].

  Apart from this fact, Funambol company provides OneMediaHub, a commercial product based on Funambol that tries to address commercial needs in the market. OneMediaHub allows to secure, sync, and share digital content on mobile devices and computers, automatically and wirelessly, via the cloud. OneMediaHub software represents the company's latest technology. Meanwhile the open source software is not meant for large-scale deployments, and, obviously, it iss not commercially supported.
  So, basically, Funambol Business Model is based on a "Dual Licensing" model according to Daffara's taxonomy of FLOSS Business Models.
  Funambol is available in two editions with different licensing model [19]:
  - Community Edition: uses the AGPLv3 open source license that lets you offer your software to all who wish to use, modify and distribute it freely.
  - OneMediaHub is available under a traditional commercial software license. It consists of a superset of Community Edition functionality that makes it suitable for large-scale deployment. For example, it includes an AJAX web portal and provides capabilities to sync rich media and files with the cloud.
  Revenues streams for Funambol come for selling the commercial version of OneMediaHub. Together with the commercial version of Funambol, OneMediaHub, Funambol has also additional revenues streams, associated to [20]:
  - Annual Software Maintenance and Technical Support: Funambol provides software maintenance and technical support including technical assistance, troubleshooting and software updates.
  - Professional Services: Funambol offers consulting services, offering professional services to help companies architect, design and deliver the highest-quality services.
  - Training: Funambol offers a five day KickStart training program.
 
References:
- Liferay:
[1] http://www.liferay.com/products/liferay-portal/ee/overview
[2] http://www.liferay.com/products/liferay-portal/ee/service-levels
[3] http://www.liferay.com/services
- Eucalyptus:
[4] http://www.eucalyptus.com/eucalyptus-cloud
[5] http://www.eucalyptus.com/customers
[6] http://www.eucalyptus.com/eucalyptus-cloud/iaas
[7] http://www.eucalyptus.com/services/support
[8] http://www.eucalyptus.com/services/consulting
[9] http://www.eucalyptus.com/services/education
- BlackDuck:
[10] https://www.blackducksoftware.com/getting-started
[11] https://www.blackducksoftware.com/products/knowledgebase
[12] https://www.blackducksoftware.com/products/black-duck-suite
[13] https://www.blackducksoftware.com/consulting/strategy-development/open-source-management-assessment
- Acquia:
[14] https://www.acquia.com/products-services
[15] https://www.acquia.com/products-services/cloud-hosting
[16] https://www.acquia.com/products-services/drupal-support-tools
[17] https://www.acquia.com/products-services/drupal-training
- Funambol:
[18] http://sourceforge.net/projects/funambol
[19] http://www.funambol.com/solutions/licensing-editions.php
[20] http://www.funambol.com/support

- Economic Aspects of Libre Software:
  http://docencia.etsit.urjc.es/moodle/mod/resource/view.php?id=4418

2012: Great year for Linux

To summarize, 2012 was a great year for Linux Operating System. The Linux Foundation has released a video to announce the increasing popularity and achievements of the Linux Operating System.

Among all the achievements obtained by Linux Operating System, from my perspective, these are, from more to less important, the ones to highlight [1]:

• Red Hat achieved $1 billion in revenue, the first time an open source vendor reached that milestone. It is a key data to demonstrate that, a company whose core business is based on FLOSS, can be profitable.
•  Android has increased its position to control more than 50 percent of the American mobile market. Moreover this, it is considered that world globally, Android has reached 75% of global market share, reaching 136 million units shipped in 2012 Q3.
• The availability of the Steam distribution platform for Linux. This fact can be a key factor for Linux to start being used in Desktop computers, the only Operating System Market where Linux is pending to place a decisive position.
• The automotive industry’s adoption of Linux-based solutions.
• HP became a Platinum Member of the Linux Foundation. Apart from the important economic impulse that this means for the Linux Foundation, the key factor is the importance of having another huge company interested on Linux Operating System.

Apart from previous facts, there has been other occurrences that must be distinguished, as they are less important in terms of economic aspects, but are important as well to clarify Linux Operating System good health in 2012:

• Linux founder, Linus Torvalds, has received the Millenium Technology Prize.
• Dell‘s Sputnik Ubuntu-based laptop.
• The advent of Chromebooks, which is a clarifying movement from Google to bet on Linux Operating System for the Desktop market.

To summarize, it seems that Linux Operating System is in one of its best moments, and project sustainability is ensured. Apart from preserving its market position in other environments, year 2012 has supposed big advances in other markets, such as Mobile Operating Systems. On the other hand, year 2013 will clarify if Linux ends to play a key role in Desktop Computers market, depending on success of Chromebooks and together with Steam as gaming platform.



References:
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unfx2qCj6Ao
[2] http://www.thevarguy.com/2012/12/14/measuring-linuxs-success-in-2012/
[3] http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/blogs/browse/2012/12/what-year-linux-please-join-us-celebration
[4] http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/02/idc-android-market-share-reached-75-worldwide-in-q3-2012/
[5] http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/19/coming-to-a-car-near-you-linux-goes-automotive-signs-up-harman-intel-toyota-samsungs-tizen-and-more/
[6] http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/05/hp-linux-platinum-member/

Linux Foundation Income Quick Numbers

The Linux Foundation is expected to continue to grow in year 2013.
New members that will start donating money to Linux Foundation include companies such as:
- FreeScale
- Amarula Solutions
- SIM Technology Group
- Superb Internet Corporation
- Symphony Teleca Corporation

 
It must be highlighted that, to become member, a company must pay at least between 5,000$ and 20,000$ a year, for a Silver membership.
Moreover this, Gold Membership costs 100,000$ a year, and Platinum Membership costs up to 500,000$ a year.
Taking into account that, by 2012, exist:
- 8 Platinum Members
- 16 Gold Members
- 139 Silver Members
With a quick calculations we have that, by 2012, Linux Foundation incomes, just with the Membership donations, were:
From:
8*500,000 + 16*100,000 + 139*5,000 = 6,295,000 $
To:
8*500,000 + 16*100,000 + 139*20,000 =8,380,000 $
However, Linux Foundation have also a big amount of individual members, that, together with previous number, surely make Linux Foundation incomes to be above 10,000,000 dollars.
So, it is obvious that, FLOSS is not a matter of altruism. Companies as well as individuals are predisposed to invest money on certain projects to continue growing.

References:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2012/12/new-members-join-linux-foundation-prioritize-linux-investments-2013

Opening Source: Going Forward

Jeremy Eder (RedHat) explains on this article, titled The open source advantage: Executives learn how to stay competitive,  about different movements from big Companies that are switching to an Open Source model for some of their products.

On the one hand, Jeremy explains about RedHat's Open Source software products build or acquired, such as RHEV-M(oVirt), CloudForms (Katello) or OpenShift (OpenShift).

On the other hand, he explains how Redback and NASA worked together within an Open Source model for OpenStack, with participation of other companies, such as RedHat itself. Success of the project enables it to become independent, switching to a Foundation model.

Apart from that, the interest on this article lays on the citation of Dreamworks as other company switching to Open Source, in particular, to OpenVDB

OpenVBD is an Open Source sparse volume processing toolkit. In this particular case, an analysis on the possible causes for Dreamworks to initiate this adventure, and, from my perspective, applicable to the vast majority of this type of movement:

• There is a possibility about Dreamworks considering not much more value to be extracted from OpenVBD, as industry continues moving on.
• Another possibility has to do with the company moving to other environments, in order to explore the path to profitability through new tools, techniques and processes.
• Although critical to business, OpenVDB has its own life and it would benefit from additional developers contributions.

However, Eder concludes that, from his perspective, the main reason is about the cost:

• Cost/maintenance burden for OpenVDB exceeds value derived. Setting it open and costless would mean just a better situation.

As main conclusion, recall that, moving to an Open Source model is just the unique tool to maintain certain products or projects along the time.

Complete article:

http://opensource.com/life/12/11/open-source-advantage

Carlos Daffara: "Open Source Contribution to Europe's economy: 450 billion euros"

According to Open Source researcher Carlos Daffara, the savings associated to the use of Open Source in Europe, taking into account all advantages provided, rises to 450 billion euro.
Directly using Open Source software solutions means reducing costs up to 114 billion euro.
Moreover direct costs, other aspects, such as reduction of project failures, as well as reduction of code maintenance, mean savings, from Daffara's point of view, up to 342 billion euro.

From Daffara's point of view, applying macroeconomic estimation and data from code reuse, up to 35% percent of the software used in the past five years is directly or indirectly related to Open Source software.
Meanwhile, it seems that Daffara's numbers are not far from another industry groups and analysts estimations, that consider savings aroung 374 billion and 399 billion euro.

References:
[1] https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/contribution-open-source-europes-economy-450-billion-year

Some numbers of Free Software on the Web

Regarding numbers to show quantitavely ciphers on the Free Software deployment, I would like to focus on those Free Software applications impacting on the Web.

Web Servers Market:

Although on Web Servers Market the leader continues to be Apache, this Web Server seems to be losing market share. Competitors, apart from Google, are increasing their market share, and doing this market to return to be considered as an Unstable Market, taking into account that Apache is again under 60% of the Market Share:

Most Reliable Hosting Site:

In terms of reliability, Hosting Site is a good example of the dominancy of Free Software based Operating Systems. Next table shows that, between the 10 most reliable sites, Linux is used in 5 of them as Operating System. Meanwhile, FreeBSD is used also in other 3 sites:

Rank	Company site	OS	Outage hh:mm:ss	Failed Req%	DNS	Connect	First byte	Total
1	Datapipe	FreeBSD		0.000	0.071	0.018	0.038	0.057
2	Qube Managed Services	Linux	0:00:00	0.007	0.132	0.071	0.142	0.142
3	XILO Communications Ltd.	Linux	0:00:00	0.007	0.331	0.132	0.388	0.668
4	iWeb	Linux	0:00:00	0.010	0.137	0.085	0.171	0.171
5	INetU	Windows Server 2008	0:00:00	0.013	0.092	0.090	0.266	0.535
6	www.logicworks.net	Linux	0:00:00	0.017	0.212	0.089	0.444	0.683
7	Server Intellect	Windows Server 2008	0:00:00	0.017	0.058	0.107	0.215	0.537
8	Multacom	FreeBSD	0:00:00	0.017	0.143	0.117	0.236	0.600
9	ReliableServers.com	Linux	0:00:00	0.020	0.371	0.097	0.200	0.282
10	Swishmail	FreeBSD	0:00:00	0.024	0.127	0.071	0.141	0.285

Meanwhile, if further inspection is done [1], 22 sites out of 37 are based on Linux, and 6 out of 37 are based on FreeBSD. So, in total, among the most reliable hosting sites, 28 out of 37 (75%) are based on FLOSS based Operating Systems.

Web Browser Market:

Web Browser Market Share is not an easy topic, as, depending on the data source, the Market varies significantly.

On the one hand, sources as "StatCounter" show Google Chrome winning the Market to Internet Explorer:

Meanwhile, other sources shows significantly different results. NetMarketShare shows dominancy of Internet Explorer in the Desktop Web Browser Market

Meanwhile, from NetMarketShare studies, Safari is the market leader in Mobile Market:

To end with Web Browser Market Share, a third study, by "Statowl", showing the Market still leaded by Internet Explorer, with Chrome and Firefox closing the three main actors in this Market:

Free Software based CMS:

Last, but not least, an study of the Market Share around CMS based on Free Software, by Water and Stone [2]

This study shows, among many other, the Alexa Top Million CMS usage, based on W3Techs. It can be infered that, Wordpress is CMS Market Leader, with Joomla and Drupal as second and third actors in the Market, but still far from Wordpress:

References:

[1] http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/performance/Hosters?orderby=epercent&tn=october_2012

[2] http://www.waterandstone.com/downloads/2011OSCMSMarketShareReport.pdf

Web Servers usage:

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/11/01/november-2012-web-server-survey.html

Most reliable hosting sites:

http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2012/11/01/most-reliable-hosting-company-sites-in-october-2012.html

http://uptime.netcraft.com/perf/reports/performance/Hosters?orderby=epercent&tn=october_2012

Web Browsers Market Share:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/255886/google_chrome_overtakes_internet_explorer.html

http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser-ww-weekly-201120-201220

http://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=0&qpcustomd=0&qptimeframe=M&qpsp=165

http://www.statowl.com/web_browser_market_share.php

Open Source CMS Market Share:

http://www.waterandstone.com/downloads/2011OSCMSMarketShareReport.pdf

Smartphones vs. Tablets age distribution

Who is using such device? What about that other device? Tablet or Smartphone?

For mobile markets,  the key question is to know and adapt to the age of its main customers, and their preferences.

Besides this, since Android acting as role player in Mobile Operating Systems, this is also a key question for FLOSS projects as well.

CNET clarifies some of the results obtained  by a study from Flurry Analytics, pretending to answer the question:

How, when, and why do people use their smartphones versus their tablets?

Complete analysis can be checked from next link:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57542081-93/the-smartphone-or-the-tablet-whos-using-all-these-devices/

In this analysis, the main conclusion is that smartphone users are younger than tablet users. For this reason, some numbers must be considered:

- On average, smartphone users mean age is 30. Meanwhile, mean age of tablet users is 34.
- Almost 75 percent of smartphone users are 34 or younger, while more than 66 percent of tablet users are 25 or older.

Complete analysis can be checked on next link:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57542081-93/the-smartphone-or-the-tablet-whos-using-all-these-devices/

LiMux to save €11Million for the city of Munich

The city of Munich started, on year 2004, the LiMux project, its particular distribution of Linux, in order to achieve a fully opensource desktop infrastructure.

Switching from Windows to Linux, in particular to LiMux,  the city of Munich has saved over €11 million ($14.3 million) to date compared to the costs of a similar migration to a more modern Microsoft-based IT infrastructure.

The total cost was calculated taking into account several factors as:

- Upgrade costs saved taking into account migration from Windows 2000 to Windows 7

- Upgrade costs saved taking into account hardware upgrade that was avoided

- Software licenses savings

Check the complete story on "ItWorld":

http://www.itworld.com/operating-systems/321474/switching-linux-saves-munich-over-11-million

European Union Public License

The European Union Public Licence (EUPL) is a Free Software / Open Source license. Both FSF [1] and OSI [2] recognize it as FLOSS license. In particular, it is a copyleft license, as this text from the license itself asserts:

'Copyleft clause: If the Licensee distributes and/or communicates copies of the Original Works or Derivative Works based upon the Original Work, this Distribution and/or Communication will be done under the terms of this Licence or of a later version of this Licence unless the Original Work is expressly distributed only under this version of the Licence. The Licensee (becoming Licensor) cannot offer or impose any additional terms or conditions on the Work or Derivative Work that alter or restrict the terms of the Licence.'

FSF [1] also recognizes its copyleft nature.

The EUPL license contains a "Compatibility Clause", that takes into consideration other licenses and the restrictions they can contain, obviously, to adjust compatibility with strong copyleft licenses:

'Compatibility Clause:For the sake of this clause, “Compatible Licence” refers to the licences listed in the appendix attached to this Licence. Should the Licensee’s obligations under the Compatible Licence conflict with his/her obligations under this Licence, the obligations of the Compatible Licence shall prevail.'

On the appendix, the compatible license recognized are:

'Appendix:
“Compatible Licences” according to article 5 EUPL are:
- GNU General Public License (GNU GPL) v. 2
- Open Software License (OSL) v. 2.1, v. 3.0
- Common Public License v. 1.0
- Eclipse Public License v. 1.0
- Cecill v. 2.0'

Moreover this, as a curiosity, FSF justifies that, by means of relicensing to Cecill v. 2.0 some parts of code, it could be compatible with GPLv3 [1]:

'It also, indirectly, allows relicensing to GPL version 3, because there is a way to relicense to the CeCILL v2, and the CeCILL v2 gives a way to relicense to any version of the GNU GPL.
To do this two-step relicensing, you need to first write a piece of code which you can license under the CeCILL v2, or find a suitable module already available that way, and add it to the program. Adding that code to the EUPL-covered program provides grounds to relicense it to the CeCILL v2. Then you need to write a piece of code which you can license under the GPLv3+, or find a suitable module already available that way, and add it to the program. Adding that code to the CeCILL-covered program provides grounds to relicense it to GPLv3+.'

The license has changed, between version 1.0 and version 1.1 the way that it specifies how different languages available and its constraints are handled.
In version 1.1, somehow, there is a clarification of the freedoms and rights available to the licensee.In version 1.1, next sentence is added, related to the possible future version of the licenses, by adding underlined text:

'The European Commission may publish other linguistic versions and/or new versions
of this Licence, so far this is required and reasonable, without reducing the scope of
the rights granted by the Licence.'

The new version, regarding this section, clarifies that license applies for all the languages in the same manner, by clarifying this terms with next sentence:

'All linguistic versions of this Licence, approved by the European Commission, have identical value. Parties can take advantage of the linguistic version of their choice.'

The change of this clause is because of two reasons:

1 - To protect the rights of the license and future versions of the license.
2 - To grant to all european citizens with the same rights, with no considerations applying to the language used and, because of that, with no special consideration between languages [3]:

'In point 13 a new paragraph was added, according to which "All linguistic versions of this Licence, approved by the European Commission, have identical value. Parties can take advantage of the linguistic version of their choice". This new paragraph reflects the original intention of the European Commission.'

Of course, the license is applicable outside the EU (if it was not, it would not be a FLOSS license, as it would violate the freedom of use). The license clarifies world-wide use in section 2:

'The Licensor hereby grants You a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sub-licensable licence to do the following, for the duration of copyright vested in the Original Work'

Although the license contains no explicit anti-patent clause, it contains, somehow, an anti-patent defense, in the end of Section 2:

'The Licensor grants to the Licensee royalty-free, non exclusive usage rights to any patents held by the  Licensor, to the extent necessary to make use of the rights granted on the Work under this Licence.'

Meanwhile, the licensee can not modify, among other, patent rights received :

'Attribution right: the Licensee shall keep intact all copyright, patent or trademarks
notices and all notices that refer to the Licence and to the disclaimer of warranties.'

References:
[1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#EUPL
[2] http://opensource.org/licenses/EUPL-1.1
[3] http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/eupl.html
[4] http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7330.html

2003: SCO vs the world

In 2003 SCO Group claimed a cluster of legal complaints about Unix and Linux source code:

What alleged IP violations SCO claimed? ¿What companies were involved?
SCO claimed that IBM had contributed part of SCO's Unix code to te codebase of the Linux Operating System. IBM would have done so without SCO's authorization, incurring on the violation of SCO's intellectual property.
    Moreover this, SCO sent letters to members of the Global 500 companies list to warn them about these claims, to prevent them from using Linux because of the liability that could mean for them.
It was, obviously, an attempt from SCO to stop increasing popularity of GNU/Linux Operating System.
    Apart from IBM and SCO, claims and counter-claims made by both sides escalated. IBM and Linux distributor Red Hat started legal action against SCO. Meanwhile, SCO sued other companies, asNovell, AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler.

How the SCO litigation was resolved? What was the final verdict?
A2) Litigation was not resolved once, with resulting final verdict following next timeline:
August 10, 2007: Judge ruled that Novell, not SCO, was the rightful owner of the copyrights covering the Unix Operating System.
September 27, 2007: Same judge administratively closed the case of SCO vs. IBM due to the fact that SCO went to bankrupt on September 14, 2007 [1].
August 24, 2009: US Court of Appeals reversed the portion of the August 10, 2007 district court summary judgment in SCO v. Novell. As a result, SCO was permitted to pursue its claim of ownership of the Unix copyrights at trial [2].
March 30, 2010: the jury returned a verdict in SCO v. Novell, finding again that Novell owns the copyrights [3].

Searching the Web, an "Open Letter" from Darl McBride, CEO of SCO, dated December 4, 2003, can be found. What does the letter argue about copyleft scheme and GPL license?
This Open Letter was written by SCO's CEO, Darl Mc Bride, on December 2004 [4].
On this letter, Darl Mc Bride alleged that GPL supposes a violation of the United States Constitution, and, in particular, to the Section 8 of Article One, that asserts that:

"Congress shall have Power ... to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

    From SCO's CEO perspective, previous article lead in 1976 to the Copyright Act, in order to provide copy protection in technology products:

"This Constitutional declaration gave rise to our system of copyrights and patents. Congress has enacted several iterations of the Copyright Act. The foundation for current copy protection in technology products is grounded in the 1976 Copyright Act".

  In that same letter, he states, in a lax and vague justification, that GPL is against the United States Constitution, in particular against Section 8 of Article One, due to next reason:

"The software license adopted by the GPL is called "copy left" by its authors. This is because the GPL has the effect of requiring free and open access to Linux (and other) software code and prohibits any proprietary use thereof. As a result, the GPL is exactly opposite in its effect from the "copy right" laws adopted by the US Congress and the European Union."

Were GPL and free software licenses was threatened in any way? Why? (or why not?)
GPL is, despite its "Copy-Left" nature, a Copyright license. GPL license is, in fact, an individual contract to achieve copyright. Lawerence Lessig gives a justified description of why SCO's position is completely wrong: [5]

"The GNU GPL is a copyright license. It is the creation not of a government, but an individual. There is no way that an individual can violate the constitution merely by writing a contract. And the argument that he can reveals that the author has no understanding of the way constitutional law functions."

Moreover this, legal minds behind GPL, seemed in the meantime to be not concerned about SCO's claims.
Eben Moglen, who was charged with GPL enforcementa by FSF, asserted in February, 2004: [6]

"I believe the constitutionality attack on the GPL is not a tenable legal argument but is rather a public relations argument."

He also stated that, regarding Copyright laws, and the possibility for an author to waive copyrights:

"The existing copyright law is constitutional and our license, which fully observes all the requirements that the copyright law places upon it, is also presumptively constitutional."

To summarize, SCO claims were not correctly justified, so GPL and free software, from my perspective, were not threatened. In fact, GPL and free software authors and lawyers showed no worry about SCO's claims and, of course, had no problem to recognize it.

References:
[1] http://groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007092110013091
[2] http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/AppealRuling.pdf
[3] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20100330152829622
[4] http://www.sco.com/copyright
[5] http://lessig.org/blog/2004/01/is_the_gnu_gpl_unconstitutiona.html
[6] http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/33121.html

Free Software vs. Software Patents

Traditionally, software patents have been considered harmful for free/open source software.
There are some causes of why software patents are harmful for FLOSS projects. Some of them are exposed below:

- The main reason: FLOSS projects are based, among other facts, on being "Open Source". Source code is provided, as they are based on the freedom for users to inspect and modify the code. This fact mades them more vulnerable to patented software detection compared to privative / close software.
- Besides this, software is basically, depending on the program complexity, on a great variety of other software components that are used together. Many of this commonly third party software that other components take advantage of could be patentable, and, for this reason, free software projects, due to its community based orientation, would make them non-viable, as they do not have same economic resources compared to the great software industry components.
- Another important reason against patents is the fact that they are normally tied to a tedious process based on a National Office that must issue them in response to an application. Meanwhile, copyright exists from the beginnng, and authors can select copyright terms with no further action. The fact that software is a very dynamic industry (even more dinamic if talking about FLOSS projects), make the idea of software patents to be completely against this dynamic character.

Different techniques and strategies that free software community have implemented (via FLOSS licenses and others) for defending against patents:
A) The main strategy against patents in FLOSS projects is including anti patent clauses.
Among the different FLOSS licenses, GPLv3, LGPLv3, MPL and Apache 2.0, for example, contain patent clauses with particular actions against patterns, including [1]:
- Grant of patent rights:
  1) GPLv3: Distribution of modified version grant explicit patent license for the whole program.
       GPLv3 contains a complete Section (Section 11) to clarify Patent royalty-free licensing:

 "Each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under the contributor's essential patent claims, to make, use, sell, offer for sale, import and otherwise run, modify and propagate the contents of its contributor version.

  In the following three paragraphs, a “patent license” is any express agreement or commitment, however denominated, not to enforce a patent (such as an express permission to practice a patent or covenant not to sue for patent infringement). To “grant” such a patent license to a party means to make such an agreement or commitment not to enforce a patent against the party" [2]

  2) Apache License 2.0: Grant explicit patent license as well, but only for the changes made by a certain distributor.

- Retalliation: Meaning that the granted rights from anyone who initiates litigation shall be retracted.
An example of this kind of grant is contained in MPL 2.0:

  "If You initiate litigation against any entity by asserting a patent infringement claim (excluding declaratory judgment actions, counter-claims, and cross-claims) alleging that a Contributor Version directly or indirectly infringes any patent, then the rights granted to You by any and all Contributors for the Covered Software under Section 2.1 of this License shall terminate" [3]

To summarize, FLOSS licences can solve a small bunch of patent related problems in two terms:
1) By requiring that distributors of a software package give recipients a licence to use any necessary patents.
2) By making patent aggression less attractive, revoking patent rights that a litigator received through the FLOSS licence.

References:
[1] http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Patent_clauses_in_software_licences
[2] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
[3] http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/2.0

1998: Netscape announce release of its Navigator as Free Software

On 1998 Netscape announced its proposal to release one of the most important product on the Enterprise as Free Software.
Text of the announcement can be checked on next link:

http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/01/22/january-22-1998-the-beginning-of-mozilla/

The announcement is a declaration of the next Netscape Communicator version (5.0) to be released as free software, by the end quarter of 1998. What expected Netscape with this action?

As Jim Barksdale affirms: "We can ignite the creative energies of the entire Net community and fuel unprecedented levels of innovation in the browser market." From his point of view, it has benefits for three parts involved, the Community, Netscape, as well as Netscape's customers: "Our customers can benefit from world-class technology advancements; the development community gains access to a whole new market opportunity; and Netscape’s core businesses benefit from the proliferation of the market-leading client software".

It is, somehow, a very aggressive movement, with a high consideration on the Community developers on the net, taking into account that distribution will be under one of the most popular license, the GPL. Next paragraph asserts:
"The company will handle free source distribution with a license which allows source code modification and redistribution and provides for free availability of source code versions, building on the heritage of the GNU Public License (GPL), familiar to developers on the Net."  

Behind this decision there is also the Enterprise reality in terms of business: "Netscape has successfully shifted its business over the past year toward enterprise software sales and to revenues from its Web site business, and away from standalone client revenues. In the third quarter of 1997, standalone client revenues represented approximately 18 percent of Netscape’s revenue, with the rest coming from enterprise software, services and the Web site.

Preliminary results for the fourth quarter of 1997, which Netscape announced January 5, show standalone client revenues decreased to approximately 13 percent in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter of 1996 by comparison, standalone client revenue represented approximately 45 percent of Netscape’s revenue."

So, in a period of two years, Netscape had changed its business toward the enterprise software sales, the services and its Web site, meanwhile, the business quota related to standalone users had decreased dramatically. For this reason, this movement also implies changing the strategy to try to consolidate the Trademark for standalone users, although it is cost-less, with a very different strategy compared to its competitors, mainly Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

 The time line from Netscape announcement to Firefox first public release was as follows:  

1998: the Mozilla project is created as Netscape released the browser suite source code. In a year, new community members had already contributed, either adding new functionality, or enhancing existing one.
The Mozilla project become bigger and Community members got involved and expanded the original mission, creating a variety of browsers, tools, and different projects.  

2002: Mozilla 1.0 was released, with many improvements to the browser, email client and other applications in the tool suite. The major issue was that nobody used it, as 90% of Internet users were browsing with Internet Explorer.
The somehow unknown Phoenix browser (later known as Firefox) was released from the Mozilla community with one specific goal: provide the better browsing experience to the widest possible set of people.  

2003: Mozilla project created Mozilla Foundation, for promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet, focusing on Firefox and Thunderbird to demonstrate it.  

2004: Firefox 1.0 is released. It became a big success, as in less than a year, it was downloaded over 100 million times. So, the Mozilla Foundation is a clear example that commercial companies can benefit by collaborating in open source projects.
Obviously, Netscape achieved its goal, as Community developed a very successful navigator from its source code.

References:  
Netscape moves to Free Software:
http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2008/01/22/january-22-1998-the-beginning-of-mozilla/ 
History of the Mozilla Project:
http://www.mozilla.org/about/history.html