Weekly Edition
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Quote of the week
It's not funny anymore. The current rate at which new GPL violations get reported and/or discovered, especially from the appliance/embedded market is really alarming.
-- Harald WelteFor example, I haven't yet seen a single linux-based NAS product that was even remotely license compliant when first analyzing it. And I'm not only talking about the SoHo NAS boxes with one or two hard disk drives, but even about enterprise storage systems. (Log in to post comments)
Time to get serious Posted Mar 2, 2006 14:23 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Perhaps it's time to make the process self-sufficient. Maybe a recalcitrant hardware maker could be made to pay a significant portion of the mythical $150000 per violation, funding the time and efforts that have been spent enforcing the license.On the other hand, the RIAA has taught us that suing your customers is not a good idea. Perhaps there is a compromise, like a timely out of court settlement?
Time to get serious Posted Mar 2, 2006 18:10 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] A customer is someone who pays you money in exchange for a product or service.Those who infringe the copyright on free software are not customers.
Time to get serious Posted Mar 2, 2006 23:11 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] You are right. "Customer" is not the right word. Something like "user" would be more like it, but it is too geared to computers: it is difficult to think that the RIAA has "users". (As the old joke goes: only software and drugs have "users"). Maybe the more artistic "audience" or the generic "public". So let me rephrase it: the RIAA has shown that suing your audience is not a good idea.What I wanted to emphasize is that those hardware manufacturers are an important part of the intended audience for free software. It is OK for them to use free software; it is even encouraged, and authors usually do not want money or even free samples. But they must fulfill the simple requirements of the GPL, or else pay for their mistakes. It is a bit sad to plead ignorance in this day and age.
Time to get serious Posted Mar 2, 2006 20:09 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] Perhaps a scheme could be worked out whereby, when a company settles the dispute, it funds checking on its competitors' compliance. Whatever reason companies have for not doing the right thing in the first place, they must expect that it would give their competitors an advantage if those violations get overlooked. So it would appear to be in their best interests to make sure they don't effectively get singled out by having come first to the attention of developers who then have more interesting things to do that check up on licensing.
Time to get serious Posted Mar 3, 2006 1:19 UTC (Fri) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link] Something like that would require some start up capital. Right now it sounds like it consists mainly of volunteer hackers bugging violators until they put the source up somewhere, anything more complex would require lawyers and their accompanying fees.
Perhaps OSDL should get involved. It seems like the kernel by far attracts the most GPL violators.
Time to get serious Posted Mar 3, 2006 7:51 UTC (Fri) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] In the link to Welte's blog above he says he wants to incorporate gpl-violations.org as an NGO so that he can "once again concentrate on cool and interesting development, like most other hackers do". Well, I think he should think big in this case. Maybe a foundation of some kind is called for? An institution like Mozilla or the FSF, with at least European and US branches -- an Asian office would not be a bad idea, since most manufacturers are there. I think that a few fines could start rolling the ball.OSDL has shown to be ineffective about almost everything, except giving Torvalds and Tridgell their monthly checks. At least that's the impression I get in the distance.
Time to get serious - GPL violations Posted Mar 4, 2006 0:43 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] "Maybe a foundation of some kind is called for? An institution like Mozilla or the FSF..."How would this be different from FSF itself? I understood that a major mission of FSF was enforcing GPL (and not just on its own software). I also hear that FSF usually settles for "go and sin no more" instead of cash, but I've always assumed it had good reasons for that.
GPL compliance Foundation Posted Mar 4, 2006 1:20 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] How would this be different from FSF itself?In scope and breadth. It seems that most violations are on the Linux kernel itself, where apparently the FSF holds a very limited amount of copyrighted code. Even the infamous Sony rootkit had GPL'd code in it according to many reports. I understood that a major mission of FSF was enforcing GPL (and not just on its own software).No, they can only enforce the GPL on their own software, and they cannot do that unless copyright holders ask them to. That is one of the reasons why they ask for copyright assignments on contributions. A non-profit organization doing its compliance job for hackers could reach a lot more code. I also hear that FSF usually settles for "go and sin no more" instead of cash, but I've always assumed it had good reasons for that.Their reasons are probably that the FSF:
GPL compliance Foundation Posted Mar 4, 2006 17:24 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] No, they can only enforce the GPL on their own software, and they cannot do that unless copyright holders ask them to. That is one of the reasons why they ask for copyright assignments on contributions. I think there's some miswording here, because it's not coherent. But I think you mean to say:
Since this would be true of a new foundation as well, it isn't really relevant to my question, which is why would a new foundation be different (better)? You seem to be saying that enforcing GPL in general is not one of FSF's main missions. I have only vague memories to the contrary from interviews and such. But even if it isn't, it surely fits within FSF's larger mission of advancing free software. So if we're looking for a solution to the problem of expanding GPL copyright violations, it seems to me we should look at adding the responsibility to FSF before creating a whole new foundation.
GPL compliance Foundation Posted Mar 4, 2006 19:13 UTC (Sat) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I think there's some miswording here, because it's not coherent.Yes, you are right, I misplaced a sentence. Your interpretation is correct too, thanks. However, on a second reading of the compliance article I get a different idea. The FSF's goals are to promote free software; but it seems that they insist on having joint copyright on software so they can enforce the GPL more effectively. I get the idea that the first step to compliance for non-GNU software would involve an assignment from the original authors. Large bodies of code are out of scope, starting with the Linux kernel; many kernel hackers don't seem to be willing to assign their copyrights to outside entities. We might say that it is simply not the way kernel development is done, and there are also practical difficulties like finding old contributors and managing the paperwork. The FSF wants to promote free software in their own way, which is excellent but not suitable for every situation -- that must be why Welte started gpl-violations.org instead of relying on them. Another organization might be necessary to just provide legal assistance. Notice that even the FSF gets their legal counsel from a separate organization, the Software Freedom Law Center. I don't know, maybe they are interested in enforcing non-GNU GPL violations; surely their cooperation would be useful, even if it is a US-centric organization.
also Posted Mar 13, 2006 14:35 UTC (Mon) by niner (subscriber, #26151) [Link] in some countries like Austria and Germany, it's not even possible to assign copyright to anyone. The copyright, or rather "Urheberrecht" stays with the original author until it expires.
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