Part Three of a Three-Part Series
By Joel T. Muchmore and Arthur Beeman, Founding Partners, Beeman & Muchmore, LLP
Identifying shared values and what serves the common good is necessary for real change. President Franklin Roosevelt, who was no stranger to social change, said it best: “Rules are not necessarily sacred; principles are.”
Since its inception, the Coalition for Fair Software Licensing (CFSL) has understood the sacredness of principles. It advocates for the universal acceptance and adoption of the “Principles of Fair Software Licensing”—nine principles designed to assure fair play and competition in software licensing.
On behalf of CFSL, Beeman & Muchmore, LLP has had the privilege over the last few weeks of embracing CFSL’s principles through a series of blog posts. In each blog, we have discussed the necessity of the principles and demonstrated how Oracle’s Java software licensing practices flout each and every one. In our first blog post, we commented on how the tortuous history of Java in the marketplace breached CFSL’s first two principles – anchor protocols requiring that licensing terms be clear and intelligible and cover reasonably expected software uses. Our second blog post specifically addressed how Oracle’s “cloud computing” policy and Java licensing practices violated yet another four of CFSL’s principles.
In our third and final blog post, we focus on the remaining three principles:
- Reducing Costs Through Efficient Use of Hardware;
- Avoiding Customer Lock-in Through Interoperable Directory Software; and
- Permitted Uses of Software Should Be Reliable and Predictable.
The foundation for these three principles lies in the software customer’s freedom to choose how to deploy its software assets and run its own business, untethered to onerous and unreasonable licensing terms imposed by a software vendor.
That foundation was cracked by Oracle in January of 2023 when it implemented its “Oracle Java SE Universal Subscription,” a draconian employee-based metric that ignores the number of users and focuses instead solely on employee headcount at a customer company. By this metric, the number of licenses required for a customer’s expected Java use is completely uncoupled from the number of actual Java users. Imagine being required to buy a block of tickets for a concert when you just want one ticket or being held to a lease for a three-bedroom apartment when you simply desire a studio apartment. In any context, the rationale behind Oracle’s Java practices can be seen for what it is: unreasonable and unsavory.
Principle 4: Reducing Costs Through Efficient Use of Hardware
CFSL’s principle mandating efficient use of hardware operates to ensure that diligent IT professionals have the freedom to adjust internal server architecture to control software deployment, and therefore cost, and to clear the path for the adoption of efficient cloud technologies (i.e., blended hardware that is not dedicated solely to that customer). Oracle’s employee-based metric for Java – which, unbelievably enough, also includes employees of the customer’s “agents, contractors, outsources, and consultants that support (its) internal business operations” – renders futile any notions of choice for the Java customer. What you pay in licensing fees under Oracle’s Java licensing terms is not the product of business or IT choices by attentive management but rather the result of an unrelated headcount of employees. And now, according to Gartner estimates, the per-employee subscription model is expected to be, on average, two to five times more expensive for customers. Of course, Garnter’s estimated average doesn’t tell the full story of the not-infrequent licensee with minimal Java usage and a high employee count that potentially faces a price increase of a hundred-fold or more.
Principle 6: Avoiding Customer Lock-In Through Interoperable Directory Software
CFSL’s principle regarding directory software looks to foster IT environments that employ open standards to protect customers from being locked into a particular directory solution and prevented from being forced to switch providers. And, despite Sun Microsystem’s original tag for Java — “write once, run anywhere” — Oracle has made such reliance measurably more unpredictable. In fact, according to a recent study, 86 percent of respondents using Oracle Java SE are currently moving or plan to move all or some of their Java applications off Oracle environments following the introduction of the employee-based subscription model. With companies scrambling to remove Java to avoid the prohibitive employee-based metric, it is easy to envision an emerging future in which the very versatility for which Java was once famous becomes a void taking with it the freedoms it once provided.
Principle 8: Permitted Uses of Software Should Be Reliable and Predictable
Finally, by its principle requiring that permitted uses of software be reliable and predictable, CFSL wants to stop software vendors from making material changes to license terms that restrict customers from previously permitted uses, especially when those customers may have become reliant on those uses. This is critical when considering the reality of how Java is automatically and surreptitiously embedded in many thousands of enterprise applications. Countless companies have been forced to reconsider programs that they have long relied upon due to Oracle’s shifting Java licensing terms. Put simply, CFSL aspires to prevent precisely the chaos that began in January of 2023 when Oracle turned the Java world on its head and imposed the untenable employee-based metric.
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If principles can indeed be sacred, then CFSL promotes principles worthy of sacredness, and the market will be well-served by their adoption.
Joel T. Muchmore and Arthur Beeman are the founding partners of Beeman & Muchmore, LLP, a law firm providing tailored software licensing and audit defense counseling.