Lycoris Source Code Controversy Clarified

Rus Bayne stated that he had no personal interest in the dispute, but would speak up for others in the community. One such member, who uses the handle, Monkey, actually brought the issue to light. 'Monkey' has been involved in other libre software projects in the past, including Yoper and Aries, and is well-known and widely respected in the community. He, along with a community member, Matt, who had a previous involvement with Blue Linux, raised concerns in 2003 about availability of Desktop/LX code. Wednesday's article reported that Iris, not Desktop/LX code was at stake in 2003. Lycoris took approximately two months to make the Desktop/LX code available.

The violations involving Adobe's fonts extended back to 2002, when Lycoris was known as Redmond Linux. Lycoris received notification in May 2004, and finally rectified the problem in October - several months after the notice. In 2005, only portions of the GPL'ed Desktop/LX code became available. No written offer existed for the missing GPL'ed sources in Desktop/LX Gold Edition. As for Iris, Lycoris did not make source code available in 2005, although available previously. Some members of the community dispute the openness of Iris, with one LXer visitor claiming that Iris was non-free. The person claimed that he had asked for source code, and was told it was non-free. LXer is still awaiting further verification of the Iris license.

According to the GPL, Section Three, developers must ensure that (a) the source code accompanies the binaries, (b) a written offer, valid for three years accompanies the binaries, to give any third party, or (c) accompany it with the information you received as to the offer. Members of the former Lycoris community claim that these terms have not been met with respect to Iris, or to a number of Desktop/LX packages. No written offer exists on the CDs, nor on any web page. Bayne confirmed the lack of a written offer, and the lack of sources for a large number of GPL'ed packages, including those belonging to the GNU Project. Bayne contacted the Free Software Foundation regarding packages belonging to the GNU Project. The Free Software Foundation provided no comment on the issue.

Adam Williamson, of Mandriva, sought to clarify the issue involving Desktop/LX technology. According to Williamson, Mandriva has not actually implemented code from the Desktop/LX project, but rather re-implemented the ideas using fresh code. Williamson said he understood that this point can be confusing to some. Additionally, while falling short of confirming that Iris is now a Mandriva asset, he was confident that it is. However, Iris is not currently being used in any Mandriva software. According to him, Cheek has all of the code in question, and that is in storage at the moment, making it impossible for anyone to make the code available at all.

This is the concern community members have: If the code had been made available from the start, no controversy would exist at all. If the provisions were made to ensure accessibility to the source code during the transition period, no cause for concern would exist at all. However, the nature of the dispute at OSNews.com left some with an impression of foul play. Mandriva and Cheek have publicly stated that they would make the source code available as soon as Cheek's computers arrive in France. That could take from three to six months. How this will be viewed by the Free Software Foundation against the backdrop of the GPL remains unanswered.

Williamson made it clear that Cheek needed to be in Paris in order to be an integral member of the Mandriva team. He said Cheek has been heavily involved in discussions surrounding the source code, but that, in fact, it would be Mandriva's responsibility - not Cheek's - to release any GPL'ed sources. According to Williamson, "...he's not at all opposed to releasing whatever source needs to be released, in principle." That essentially reiterates Mr. Bancilhon's statements. Whatever people think of Mr. Cheek, they will have to wait until he turns his source code over to Mandriva before they can release it.

By making arrangements for availability of source code, either through temporary storage on the Internet, or by having several copies of the storage media available, developers and companies in similar situations can avoid a negative backlash. Additionally, by making written offers for source code that accompany the binaries, companies can make arrangements to provide source media available via snail mail during the transition period. At the very least, developers and companies knowing that their source code will be unavailable for a period of time should offer advanced notice. Even if that doesn't meet the requirements of the GPL, surely communicating with users will be appreciated.