Attack of the Clones
An article posted about a month ago details a serious challenge for companies with GPL software seeking to protect their intellectual property. Basically, RedHat's newly released Enterprise Linux 4 was cloned shortly after its launched by few other companies. Up until a few years ago, RedHat freely distributed its "production" version of its Linux-based operating system. They realized that they were loosing potential revenue by not charging fees for their software, so they began charging a service fee to obtain copies and maintain software update support for their distribution. The catch is that the software falls under the General Public License (GPL), which governs linux and most of the software within the linux kernel and virtually every piece of software within all major distributions.
The GPL basically states that software source must be freely distributed, and that any software derived from GPL licensed software must also include the GPL license. This requires that the source code for all of RedHat EL must be available for free download. RedHat only distributes its binary software packages to those who have purchased the support contract for RHEL; However, anyone can download the source and build their own binaries; Several companies now specialize in offering free distributions based solely on the RHEL source code.
It will be interesting to see how RedHat responds to this threat. RedHat is a publicly traded company, which means that they have to make a profit. Unfortunately, the GPL license creates more problems for them than it solves. The lack of IP protection is directly threatening the viability of RedHat's new direction. How long will clones erode its fee-based revenue before they are forced to change their business? I'm not saying that all of their revenue will dry up. One may make the argument that the people who are already paying for RHEL support contracts already see the value in having their software supported by RedHat. However, I know of many cost conscious technology companies who would rather not pay for a hefty support contract, and I can only see this number growing. I personally see the value in having enterprise level support in an environment where you're supporting hundreds to thousands of servers, but for a small business it makes more sense to use a clone.
Conversely, the BSD license, which governs the *BSD operating systems as well as a good number of other "open source" software, has a much different IP model. Basically, the BSD license says that the software source is open for free distribution, but that deritives of that software do not require the BSD license (and thus don't have to be open source). One of the most well known software derived from BSD licensed "open source" is Mac OSX. In 1999-2000, Apple developed Mac OSX based on FreeBSD 3.x. Unlike RedHat, they have complete control over their intellectual property.
I wonder how this canundrum will be resolved. It will be interesting to say the least.
