News survey: the development of Linux will bring great troubles to China's software industry

Article title: news survey: the development of Linux will bring great troubles to the software industry in China. Linux is a technology channel of the IT lab in China. Includes basic categories such as desktop applications, Linux system management, kernel research, embedded systems, and open source.
SCO, which owns the Unix operating system patent rights, files a lawsuit against the third local court in Salt Lake-gun, Utah, where its headquarters is located, accusing IBM of stealing SCO's Unix technology and embedding it in Linux without authorization, claims compensation of more than $1 billion, IBM alleged charges include theft of trade secrets, unfair competition, default and illegal intervention in SCO business operations. It is said that SCO has obtained favorable evidence that the 2.4 Linux kernel contains code from the SCO Unix System V kernel.
　　
In May 14, SCO continued to expand its legal operations and again sent a letter to 1500 large enterprises around the world, warning that using Linux may violate the law. SCO recently announced that it would "at some time of this month" mail invoices to Linux commercial users, asking them to pay $699 in license fees for each Linux server.
　　
In September 4, the IT giant Dell asked Dell to assure them that, once SCO sued them for using a computer where Dell installed Linux products, dell should provide them with protection, which Dell makes clear.
　　
In recent months, in this heated debate between SCO and IBM, what is the intellectual property right? To this end, people in the industry have begun to pay attention to the copyright and license issues of various development source codes.
　　
I. hidden intellectual property traps in LINUX
　　
Some domestic experts raise objections to the development of autonomous operating systems and products based entirely on Linux. In fact, Linux founder LinusTorvalds has never given up copyright requirements for core programs. as long as they are willing, they can withdraw the Linux open protocol at any time and change it into an exclusive patent, or he has the freedom to amend software license terms at any time. In fact, Linus has switched to the current GPL protocol and has gone through this process. If one day he shut down the operating system kernel, China's software industry would catch up with the result again.
　　
After careful analysis, some of Linux's core components are determined to have the possibility of infringement. In fact, Linux code infringement has many potential possibilities, moreover, the development mechanism and code review process of Linux are not as rigorous as those of open-source operating systems such as FreeBSD, which have been honed by copyright issues since its launch.
　　
In the use of GPL (described in detail below), the copyright issue of derivative works is often encountered. According to the theory of copyright law, if you modify or translate a work that has been produced by an existing work, the copyright of the work shall be the same as that of the new author. The free software bound by GPL is no exception. the recipient of the GPL license, of course, legally obtains the right to modify the program or works based on the program. that is to say, he has the legal basis to modify the program. The copyright of the new work after modification shall be owned by him. However, it is important that the modifier must meet GPL's requirements when re-publishing the modified program (derivative works: "you must allow a third party to use your published or published work as a whole for free under the license terms ". And the GPL clause stipulates that "when you re-release a program (or any program-based work, the recipient automatically receives from the issuer of the original license a license that is subject to these terms and conditions to replicate, publish or modify the program ".
　　
Apparently, when the modifier re-releases the modified derivative work, in addition to indicating the identity of the modifier on the derivative work, the modifier has lost any right to control the derivative work. The licenses issued by all users, no matter who issues them directly, are deemed to have been obtained from the issuer of the original license. The creator of the derivative works has copyright to the work, but when he re-releases the derivative work, it is actually the original issuer who transfers the right to the license. The user of derivative works is also deemed to have the right to copy, reissue and modify the work from the original issuer of the license.
　　
The modified program forms derivative works based on the program and is subject to the GPL clause when it is released again. However, if it can prove that a part of the republished work is not a program modification or derivative work, but an independent part, it forms a "different work ". Different works are independently released and are not subject to the GPL clause. The author shall have full copyright to the works. Even different works are released as part of derivative works, as a whole, they are still subject to GPL constraints.
　　
In legal sense, we cannot reference the rules of the industrial age to clearly define the property rights of software products developed using Linux. According to the existing software copyright registration methods, only software products that are unique and not copied by the copyright holder can be registered and registered in accordance with the law and protected by law. Therefore, clarifying software ownership and its legal sources has become the first legal condition for defining property rights.
　　
In turn, the core of LINUX application development in China is free access rather than independent development. different developers add their own installation, use interface and plug-in software packages, there are also a lot of things based on the "Jade of his Mountains"-the necessity of these free software world, with the constraints of the principles of the current law, you will obviously feel the embarrassment.
　　
In fact, not long ago, Turbo Linux was frustrated by its attempt to copyright its Linux version at the Chinese software registration center.
　　
II. terrible "gnu gp" license
　　
Linux is published according to GPL. Therefore, its copyright is the same as other free programs published by GPL.
　　
In advocating the free software alliance plan, Richard started with the software copyright License agreement and created a General Public License agreement that is compatible with the development of open source software, GPL), which is one of the open source software licenses of the Free Software Alliance GNU, is one of the most prestigious open source software licenses, but at the same time, GPL licenses are also the most restrictive to licensee rights in the open source software field.
　　
The GPL license only limits the replication, distribution, and modification of related programs. However, as an exception, if the output of the running program constitutes a program-based work, the running behavior is also subject to license terms as long as it complies with the replication, distribution and modification rules of the GPL-related program, you have the right to copy and distribute programs in the form of execution code, but you must attach the source code together with the execution program, or provide written quotation information for obtaining the source code. The quotation for obtaining the source code is limited to the actual cost of releasing the source code.
　　
The copyright of Linux is the same as that of other free programs released by GPL, which forms program-based derivative works and is subject to the GPL clause when published. However, if it can prove that a part of the republished work is not a program modification or derivative work, but an independent part, it forms a "different work ". Different works are independently released and are not subject to the GPL clause. The author shall have full copyright to the works. Even different works are released as part of derivative works, as a whole, they are still subject to GPL constraints.
　　
The core principle of GPL is that any derivative product based on GPL software development must adopt the GPL license method and provide the source code. Currently, the LINUX infringement lawsuit between SCO and IBM is involved. IBM believes that since SCO was previously a Linux vendor (now SCO is actually a former Linux vendor Caldera) based on GPL, a Linux system including Linux core source code is released, including what SCO deems as "infringement", because the issuance of such licenses is irrevocable, therefore, SCO no longer has rights to these codes. The potential risk here is that, although GPL has been born for more than a decade, it has never been tested by law. Recently, GPL infringement incidents have been repeatedly reported, but none of them have been resolved through legal procedures. It can be said that the results of this decision will directly affect the fate of free software.
　　
3. Are there any other options?
　　
In the 1980s S, with the advent of personal computers, the price of hardware was accepted by individuals and small and medium-sized enterprises, which gave users the possibility to use Unix systems extensively. However, because the INTEL8086 chip has poor PC capabilities, it cannot implement a UNIX multi-user system that actually works normally. After 1990s, Intel released the 80386 chip, which greatly improved the computing capability of PCs. it is also possible to build a Unix program that can be used on PCs.
　　
In fact, Unix that can run on the X86 platform is quite limited at this time. the Xienx of Mircosoft is a (later developed to become SCO Unix), but it cannot be expected to use this commercial system freely or for free. Unix source code is required to port Unix to the PC platform, which is restricted by AT&T's permission, unix code cannot be freely obtained (but 4.4 BSD Lite after the BSD and AT&T legal disputes are no longer subject to this restriction and can be freely used with the BSD license, this makes FreeBSD a lot of convenience ). Many computer enthusiasts are constantly making efforts to implement a free-to-use operating system. The purpose of the GNU program of the Free Software Foundation is to create a free, Unix-like operating system, GNU has developed many very effective tools, including compilers and many system commands. However, HURD, the operating system kernel in the GNU program, is slow, making it impossible to build a complete operating system. Soon, a computer enthusiast began to consider building a Unix kernel on a personal computer platform. Linus Torvalds, a computer graduate student in Finland, started his work. by studying Minix, a simple Unix system for teaching purposes, he built the Linux kernel on the x86 platform, this kernel, combined with the GNU system tool, has achieved considerable success and has become a very popular GNU/Linux system.
　　
Compared to these efforts, BSD researchers are being held back by the legal disputes between AT&T and BSD, hindering the development of BSD. But there are still two development jobs that are porting BSD to the 80386 platform at the same time. one is the BSD/386 team. their research results are commercial version BSD/OS, which belongs to BSDI, a commercial company. The other is the benchmark BSD plan, which later evolved into FreeBSD.
　　
The sort BSD program was initiated by researchers such as Bill Jolitz to Port 4.3BSD Net/2 to the 80386 platform and publish it using the name of the sort BSD. However, porting is a complex task, and there are still a lot of problems in the system until ipvbsd 0.5. So in 1993, other researchers decided to join the program and intend to work with Bill Jolitz to correct problems in the system. But Bill Jolitz, the organizer of the plan, suddenly decided to exit, putting the objective BSD plan in danger of stopping. Bill Jolitz, as the initiator and responsible person of the plan, does not give specific opinions on how to develop the plan in the future. Therefore, the decision of other developers is to continue the development until now. Fortunately, the other three participants of the project, Nate Williams, Rod Grimes, and Jordan K. hubbard decided to continue this very meaningful job. they used FreeBSD, the name created by David Greenman, as the new name of the system, since then, FreeBSD is a Unix operating system that anyone can use freely. December 1993 is a very important date for FreeBSD. FreeBSD 1.0 was officially released this month. The FreeBSD developer found a publisher Walnet Creek to provide support to release FreeBSD CDs and provide high-speed Internet services, so that anyone can purchase CDs or download them over the Internet, the free access to the FreeBSD system has made FreeBSD a great success. Although FreeBSD can be freely obtained, BSD and