<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=3DContent-Type content=3D"text/html; charset=3Dus-ascii"> <META content=3D"MSHTML 6.00.2900.2180" name=3DGENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY> <DIV>Recently we have heard a large number of inaccurate and damaging statements=20 about Lustre licensing.=20 <P>The text below, also available at <A=20 href=3D"http://www.clusterfs.com/lustre_is_oss.html">http://www.clusterfs.com/lustre_is_oss.html</A>=20 describes CFS practices.=20 <P>We hope you find this helpful.=20 <P>Peter J. Braam<BR>Founder of the Lustre Project <BR>President and Founder,=20 <BR>Cluster File Systems, Inc.=20 <h1>Lustre Open Source Position</h1> <h2>Is Lustre Open Source?</h2> <p>CFS supplies Lustre for Linux to all customers under the GPL. We also make public, freely available releases of Lustre under the GPL. The GPL is an OSDL approved Open Source license.</p> <h2>Is Lustre available at no cost?</h2> <p>There are free versions of Lustre. CFS releases the latest version of Lustre to the general public for free after some time, less then one year, has passed. We have made four such releases since February 2004. The latest versions of Lustre are available to paying customers (under the GPL). Both Richard Stallman and Eric Raymond have made it clear that this is not contradicting an open source license: open source does not mean zero cost.</p> <h2>Why do you charge for the latest versions? How does CFS repel competition?</h2> <p>Some potential "partner" companies made it clear that they would like to compete with CFS on development and service. To protect CFS, we decided to charge for, and limit availability of, the latest version. Our service agreements give us further protection, similar to that provided to Red Hat through its service contracts. For example, if customers or partners choose to exercise their rights under the GPL and use Lustre beyond the systems for which they purchased support, CFS is free to stop supporting them.</p> <h2>Who gets Lustre under a non-GPL license?</h2> <p>Some of our partners have requested to distribute components of Lustre under a different license - we have made that possible. Evaluators of the latest Lustre software are given the software, including source, under a license that does not permit re-distribution or production value use.</p> <h2>Why is CFS protective of copyright on Lustre?</h2> <p>CFS wants to ship proprietary versions of Lustre for Windows, OS X and other operating systems. We also want to continue to provide non-GPL evaluations. In order to be able to do this and still accept outside contributions we need those contributions either assigned to us or licensed liberally to CFS. The Free Software Foundation (FSF) led by Richard Stallman and the Reiser File System follow similar copyright management practices.</p> <h2>How will CFS continue to innovate?</h2> <p>Innovation requires funding. CFS hopes to enable further development by making reasonable profits from its service business and - in due course - from its proprietary non-Linux products.</p> <h2>What if CFS changes its mind, or goes out of business?</h2> <p>Many people have a GPL version of Lustre, which cannot be taken away from them. If CFS expertise were to become unavailable, there is a growing community of knowledgeable engineers and scientists at Lustre users and partners.</p> <h2>Why is there no "open-development" of Lustre?</h2> <p>Our experience in developing distributed file systems for more than 10 years has been that the open source community contributes relatively little to such projects.</p> <h2>Why should the US Government first pay for the development of Lustre and then for licenses and support?</h2> <p>The US Government contributed significantly to Lustre, and it is in everyone''s interest for CFS to remain viable.</p> <p>The last 10 years show that open source companies must be managed very carefully or they go out of business. CFS has a business model closely aligned with that of successful companies in this area. Although we weren''t required to do so, we received specific approval of our business model from the managers of our government contracts.</p> <h2>What is meant by "bait and switch"?</h2> <p>CFS is not completely sure why some individuals have expressed such disappointment with our practices. It may be because they are associated with competing file system projects, or perhaps other personal issues play a role. Often inaccurate comments about CFS licensing practices are mixed with inaccurate technical statements critical of Lustre.</p> <p>In the late 1990''s Peter Braam was hopeful that a sustainable business could be established using a completely open development model. Following the failure of many such businesses, CFS chose the model described here.</p> </DIV></BODY></HTML>