Can GPL be enforced in China?

Open Source

Frederic Muller

If it ain't free like in beer, it's free like in freedom anyway.

The question of the enforceability of the GPL came into question during a presentation by Taiwen Jiang, the XOOPS maintainer. XOOPS is basically a home grown China, well actually Asian, open source system. Recently, XOOPS has picked up a champion to help them grow their community and breach the commercial side of development.

I highly recommend you go through the presentation that I have linked above for a more thorough understanding of this--and, mainly, theChinese open source community. The XOOPS project gives some very interesting insights into some of the challenges the open source community faces in China, namely, recognition of the GPL. Taiwen Jiang had mentioned that in exploring the legal recognition of GPL in China is at best a grey area, but at most unrecognized due to limited government regulations and confusion of whether or not GPL requires copyright since it is interpreted as free.

However, taking this into account, what does this GPL dilemma mean to the IP rights of the open source community as a whole? Firstly, this is a pretty good reason for why there are not more contributions being made to the community, from China, as obviously, many small companies, and perhaps larger OEMs are too involved in profiting from the Community and not building it up. A bit of a 'Commons' dilemma if you ask me.

Secondly, Taiwan Jiang made an interesting argument, that if legal recognition is not going to be given to those that have contributed their time to the betterment of the community then why should they contribute at all. Obviously, recognition is not the main reason for why developers open source their work, though there is some vanity in it. But, if the bulk of the benefactors of a project are taking and not giving back, then the project is more likely to die, as is the case of many projects in China.

Chinese officials have a long way to go to understand what "free" means. Until they do, developers in China are going to find a better way to cooperate and ensure the longevity of their projects. XOOPS is managing to stay alive and grow, but there are some commercial interests behind them.

Talkback

Add your opinion

In order to post a comment, you need to be registered. (Sign In or register below)

Post your comment

ZDNet Asia Live

it depend of his culture the modern ones yes , but the old fashion no , if he like you for not serious relationship , the he just need a ...

1 minute ago by collingridge on Philippine antipiracy drive focuses on enterprises

it depend of his culture the modern ones yes , but the old fashion no , if he like you for not serious relationship , the he just need a ...

1 minute ago by collingridge on Philippine antipiracy drive focuses on enterprises

i would look into technical colleges around ur area to see if they offer that program. most technical schools offer it.
Joliese Tan

4 minutes ago by collingridge on EMC ramps up cloud efforts through tighter alliances

@BarackObama People voted you in for change. Why are you not listening on ACTA http://tinyurl.com/y8u56g9 #hcr HCR

15 minutes ago by studio1411 on topsy

MB Kabbalah IChing - Free Software Downloads - ZDNet Asia: MB Kabbalah IChing is a zodiac sign based software that... http://bit.ly/czUQRr

1 hour 8 minutes ago by fighting_jew on topsy

As Sony camera users, both MTS and M2TS are Sony high definition video file types, which are raw AVCHD videos recorded by AVCHD camcorder...

1 hour 50 minutes ago by tracyjump on Mobile data centers becoming 'mainstream'

Found this great little deal calculator http://www.zdnetasia.com/downloa...

8 hours 29 minutes ago by winstoncranford on topsy

RT @mistertechblog: I wrote about Nexus One and Touchdown, desktop dock, Bluetooth/USB tethering, ebooks here: http://bit.ly/bRdzx0

14 hours 40 minutes ago by yklee13 on topsy

Read my blog post on getting the most from your Nexus One: http://www.zdnetasia.com/blogs/m...

Data Centre Operator (Fresh Graduates Welcome to Apply) in ... http://bit.ly/bagYuu

15 hours 10 minutes ago by intmasterfeed on topsy

RT @3wconsulting: Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oY9f

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbA

Whitepaper from http://3W.com.au "Outsourcing Your IT Requirements to Philippines" now on @zdnetaustralia & @zdnetasia http://ow.ly/1oYbz

Zdnetasia.com Estimated Worth $178,365 USD. Daily Ad Revenue:$244 USD, Daily Views:81,445 Pages... - http://www.haplog.com/www.zdneta...

The receivers don't transmit back to the satellite. Unless there is a phone line attached to the receiver, they don't have any wa...

1 day 26 minutes ago by bessellbrowne on Apple to join the geolocation craze?

whatever little understanding I have we 'll only progress toward end of the world if we use HPCs to lenthen life of human being. Huma...

2 days 33 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing promises elixir of life

Thanks for the knowledgeable article on SDDs. Allas...when all this reasearch will happen in Indian Universities. Hope the new bill on Fo...

2 days 46 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on APAC HPC users eye solid-state drives

It was a good article. This brings a good opportunity for Indian IT firms to come up with new solutions in this field. HPC can become a b...

2 days 4 minutes ago by abhi32002@gmail.com on High computing most-wanted job in Asia

COL KR DHARMADHIKARY(RETD) its very late to reply the link, but if it is still alive and looking for opportunity, i would like to know th...

2 days 2 minutes ago by deb021280 on Education takes off in rural India, helped by PCs

High performance computing (HPC) most-wanted job in Asia http://bit.ly/9vFC3i (via @zdnetasia) #singapore

RT @zdnetasia: EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. (cont) http://tl.gd/i5jjd

EMC COO, Pat Gelsinger, on bridging gaps in the organization and its cloud ambitions in Asia. http://bit.ly/9etOZW

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08 via @zdnetasia

Asian SMBs need to pay more attention to disaster recovery planning http://bit.ly/bDet08

[TECH] URL Shorteners slow Web redirection. - http://bit.ly/bySnWK @zdnetasia

URL shorteners are great but they can slow web redirection & you pray it would never go down http://bit.ly/bySnWK via @zdnetasia

URL shorteners slow Web redirection. http://bit.ly/bySnWK

Chinese agencies cry foul over Google. http://bit.ly/by6rwV

all of sg's isps have been practising compulsory invisible proxy for all home subscribers at their backend since many years back alre...

3 days 45 minutes ago by melvinchia on Web filters mean bad news for business

it is not to good for china.
Proactol

3 days 30 minutes ago by nathonastle on Chinese ad partners beg Google for information

Very good explanation of JMX

4 days 35 minutes ago by Babith B on Managing applications with JMX

The reaction to a report issued Tuesday by Flurry Analytics managed to completely overlook some interesting news--the Android-based Motorola Droid outsold the original iPhone over the same period of time following their respective launches--to focus instead on the sales numbers for the Nexus One.

5 days 39 minutes ago by lonemavericks on diggs

Another ZTE story....

5 days 41 minutes ago by Moderate Your Greed on Philippines opens bid for final 3G license

We at www.fifosys.com have also seen a growth in IT outsourcing and anticipate it as a growing field.

5 days 14 minutes ago by sarah Jane on Companies' outsourcing spend to increase

I agree with you. The iSiVaL is super portable and TVs can't expand their image size. I recorded a video that might bring some ideas to...

5 days 45 minutes ago by Jesse B Andersen on Buying a projector? Try an LED TV instead