"In the past, I've said that 'cloud' is complete gibberish, but while
discussing fashion during my weekly squash game with Stallman he
convinced me that this was a great opportunity. It's not often that a
vendor group devoid of products can so easily and quickly get the
marketing upper hand, and by partnering with the FSF, we should be able
to get the free software community completely on board with us" said
Larry Ellison, Chairman and CEO of Oracle™. "I'm really excited about
working more with Stallman, " he added. "I've always been a supporter
of the Free™ software movement, and being able to play a key role in
the creation of a new license is very important to me. This should be
a great way to level the playing field -- even small players like
retail booksellers can get involved."
This new license, the "CloudLeft Public License (CPL)", is the logical
extension of the Free™ software philosophy to The Cloud®. It is based
on two fundamental ideas; that data wants to be Free™, and all your
Cloud™ are belong to us. Building on these core tenets, the license
ensures that software running on as well as data passing through a
CloudLeft platform will be Free™ and made available to anyone connected
to the internet, whether via REST, web services or SOA - even over IPv6.
"Clouds want to be Free™", said Richard M. Stallman, Founder of the
Free Software Foundation. "While I've said that cloud computing is
'worse than stupidity', we found that licensing was lax due to the
so-called "user data loophole", even after plugging the "service
provider loophole" last year. I'm proud to introduce the "CloudLeft
Public License (CPL)", under which both the source code for, and data
passing through, a CloudLeft platform will be Free™. This license also
reintroduces the advertising clause, requiring you to use the name
'GNU/Cloud'. I'm tired of haranguing the GNU/Linux community about
this."