Adobe, Alibaba, Amadeus, Ant Financial,
Atlassian, Atos, AT&T, Bandwidth, Etsy, GitHub, Hitachi,
NVIDIA, Oath, Renesas, Tencent, and Twitter are latest companies to
adopt commitment to provide a cure period for correcting license
compliance issues in GPLv2 software
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:
• Adobe
• Atos
• GitHub (blog here)
• Renesas
• Alibaba and Ant Financial
• AT&T
• Hitachi
• Tencent
• Amadeus
• Bandwidth (blog here)
• NVIDIA
• Twitter
• Atlassian
• Etsy
• Oath
Supporting QuotesMichael 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 StatementsCertain 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
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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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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20181107005478/en/
Media:Stephanie WonderlickRed Hat, Inc.+1
571-421-8169swonderl@redhat.com
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