RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that Adobe, Alibaba, Amadeus, Ant Financial, Atlassian, Atos, AT&T, Bandwidth, Etsy, GitHub, Hitachi, NVIDIA, Oath, Renesas, Tencent, and Twitter have joined an ongoing industry effort to combat harsh tactics in open source license enforcement by adopting the GPL Cooperation Commitment. By making this commitment, these 16 corporate leaders are strengthening long-standing community norms of fairness, pragmatism, and predictability in open source license compliance.
Today’s announcement follows an earlier wave of adoption of the commitment within the technology industry. Red Hat, Facebook, Google and IBM made the initial commitment in November 2017. They were joined in March 2018 by CA Technologies, Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Microsoft, SAP and SUSE. In July 2018, 14 additional companies signed on to the commitment: Amazon, Arm, Canonical, GitLab, Intel Corporation, Liferay, Linaro, MariaDB, NEC, Pivotal, Royal Philips, SAS, Toyota and VMware. One month later, in August 2018, the eight funding members of the Open Invention Network (OIN) — Google, IBM, Red Hat, SUSE, Sony, NEC, Philips, Toyota — announced that they had unanimously adopted the GPL Cooperation Commitment. With today’s announcement, more than 40 organizations have adopted the GPL Cooperation Commitment.
The 16 new companies in today’s announcement are a diverse set of technology firms whose participation makes evident the worldwide reach of the GPL Cooperation Commitment. They comprise globally-operating companies based on four continents and mark a significant expansion of the initiative into the Asia-Pacific region. They represent various industries and areas of commercial focus, including IT services, software development tools and platforms, social networking, fintech, semiconductors, e-commerce, multimedia software and more.
The GPL Cooperation Commitment is a means for companies, individual developers and open source projects to provide opportunities for licensees to correct errors in compliance with software licensed under the GPLv2 family of licenses before taking action to terminate the licenses. Version 2 of the GNU General Public License (GPLv2), version 2 of the GNU Library General Public License (LGPLv2), and version 2.1 of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPLv2.1) do not contain express “cure” periods to fix noncompliance prior to license termination. Version 3 of the GNU GPL (GPLv3) addressed this by adding an opportunity to correct mistakes in compliance. Those who adopt the GPL Cooperation Commitment extend the cure provisions of GPLv3 to their existing and future GPLv2 and LGPLv2.x-licensed code.
Specifically, the commitment language adopted by each company is:
Before filing or continuing to prosecute any legal proceeding or claim (other than a Defensive Action) arising from termination of a Covered License, [Company] commits to extend to the person or entity (“you”) accused of violating the Covered License the following provisions regarding cure and reinstatement, taken from GPL version 3. As used here, the term ‘this License’ refers to the specific Covered License being enforced.
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.
[Company] intends this Commitment to be irrevocable, and binding and enforceable against [Company] and assignees of or successors to [Company]’s copyrights.
[Company] may modify this Commitment by publishing a new edition on this page or a successor location.
Definitions
‘Covered License’ means the GNU
General Public License, version 2 (GPLv2), the GNU Lesser General Public
License, version 2.1 (LGPLv2.1), or the GNU Library General Public
License, version 2 (LGPLv2), all as published by the Free Software
Foundation.
Defensive Action’ means a legal proceeding or claim that [Company] brings against you in response to a prior proceeding or claim initiated by you or your affiliate.
‘[Company]’ means [Company] and its subsidiaries.
Read the individual commitments:
Supporting Quotes
Michael Cunningham, executive vice
president and general counsel, Red Hat
“We are thrilled to see
the continued success of the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Compliance in
the open source community is a forgiving process and rightly aimed at
maximizing use of open source software. Adoption of the commitment by
these 16 prominent technology companies strengthens this message and
will enhance predictability in the use of open source software.”
Jiangwei Jiang, general manager of Technology R&D, Alibaba Cloud
"Alibaba
is an active advocate, contributor and leader in the open source
movement, and resorts to openness and inclusiveness to address
controversy within the community."
Benjamin Bai, vice president of Intellectual Property, Ant Financial
"Ant
Financial is pleased to join the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Open source
software has thrived on the basis of collaboration. Litigation should be
used only as a last resort and in a responsible manner."
Sri Viswanath, chief technology officer, Atlassian
"Atlassian
embraces the open source movement and wants to help in responsibly
shaping its future. The GPL Cooperation Commitment is a common-sense
solution that makes it easier for users to adopt and innovate with open
source, which is why we are pleased to join the Commitment."
Mazin Gilbert, vice president of Advanced Technology and Systems,
AT&T Labs
“AT&T is delighted to join the already successful
GPL Cooperation Commitment. As a long-time contributor to the open
source community, we’re excited to continue on this journey and
encourage the spirit of collaboration.”
Mike Linksvayer, director of Policy, GitHub
"We're thrilled
to encourage and join in broad software industry cooperation to improve
the legal and policy underpinnings of open source, which ultimately
protects and empowers the people–and the community–behind the
technology."
Gil Yehuda, senior director of Open Source, Oath
“Oath is
committed to promoting open source success and we support the GPL
Cooperation Commitment. Open source collaboration is about working
together to make better software for the entire industry.”
Hisao Munakata, senior director of Automotive Technical Customer
Engagement Division, Automotive Solution Business Unit, Renesas
“Renesas
is committed to being a first-class citizen in an OSS community which is
why we contributed to the development of the Linux kernel, especially
for the development of device drivers. We strongly believe by supporting
the GPL Cooperation Commitment, we will be able to drive the worldwide
adoption of the OSS license and bring great advantages to the whole
automotive industry.”
Takahiro Yasui, director of OSS Solution Center, Systems & Services
Business Division, Hitachi, Ltd.
“It is our pleasure to declare
our participation to this Cooperation Commitment. Hitachi has been
participating in the open source ecosystem through being a member of
wide varieties of open source communities and working with open source
organizations. Hitachi believes this activity helps the open source
community grow healthy, and accelerate the speed of further open
innovation in the open source ecosystem.”
Sam Xu, head of Intellectual Property, Tencent
“Open source
is a key part of Tencent's technology strategy. We look forward to
working more closely with the international open source community to
create new and cutting-edge open source solutions. The GPL Cooperation
Commitment will provide more reasonable and predictable protection for
developers and contributors, which will foster a thriving and healthy
open source ecosystem.”
Remy DeCausemaker, Open Source Program Manager, Twitter
"Twitter
is proud to join the GPL Cooperation Commitment. Efforts like these
encourage adoption, reduce uncertainty, and build trust. #GPLCC"
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About Red Hat, Inc.
Red
Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source
software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver
reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and
Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and
existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize
on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and
manage complex environments. Award-winning
support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted
adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud
providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open
source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the
digital future.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in
this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events
based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not
directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may
differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking
statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks
related to the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the
ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and
technological innovations on a timely basis; delays or reductions in
information technology spending; the integration of acquisitions and the
ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; risks
related to errors or defects in our offerings and third-party products
upon which our offerings depend; risks related to the security of our
offerings and other data security vulnerabilities; fluctuations in
exchange rates; changes in and a dependence on key personnel; the
effects of industry consolidation; uncertainty and adverse results in
litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect
Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or
breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual
property; the ability to meet financial and operational challenges
encountered in our international operations; and ineffective management
of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations,
as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report
on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and
Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov),
including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and
"Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results
of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance,
outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general
factors including (without limitation) general industry and market
conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions,
governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural
disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements
included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the
date of this press release and these views could change. However, while
the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some
point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation
to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as
representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date
of this press release.
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