In recent years, a number of cloud-based
Infrastructure-as-a-Service ("IaaS") offerings have emerged that
provide officially supported free (as in beer) Linux, MySQL and other
server images for use in the cloud. The majority of the components
that make up these images are licensed under copyleft terms. However,
the default approach of many cloud service providers is to
contractually limit the use of these official Linux images to
execution within their propriety cloud service. To the extent they
make available complete and corresponding source code for the purposes
of examination or modification, the cloud service providers also
restrict access and viewing of that source code to within the
sandboxed cloud service.
This session will examine the legal and business justifications for
such practices. What good is complete and corresponding source
(freedom 1) in a sandboxed environment if you are essentially denied
use of it outside of a proprietary cloud service (freedoms 0, 2 and
3)? Are these restrictions enforceable? What steps can FOSS developers
take to prevent their projects from being subverted by cloud
providers?