U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit? [LWN.net]

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 0:43 UTC (Fri) by ndye (subscriber, #9947)
Parent article: SFLC files first U.S. GPL violation lawsuit

The timeline seems rushed:

2007-Aug-28, BusyBox developers learn a company has been distributing binaries without distributing source, apparently since 2006-Jan;
2007-Sep-05, the company's support forum confirms Busybox is in the Firmware;
2007-Sep-11, SFLC lawyer-types notify Monsoon Multimedia of their GPL obligation (I'd like to presume some unofficial talks before then, but the complaint doesn't mention it);
2007-Sep-20, Federal Court!

Then the Prayer for Relief begs the Court to...

order Defendant to account for and disgorge to Plaintiffs all profits derived by Defendant from its unlawful acts

where the unlawful act(s) appears to distributing a Firmware binary including BusyBox without distributing the source code, per the GPL.

While I agree that's Not A Good Thing(TM), what do Erik and Rob really want?

another distributor for BusyBox?
source for the HAVA firmware?
good old cash? ;-)

(Log in to post comments)

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 1:34 UTC (Fri) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]

It may well be that such negotiation failed in this case. I imagine they would have tried that route
first, since litigation is much more expensive and time-consuming.

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 2:12 UTC (Fri) by louie (subscriber, #3285) [Link]

According to the complaint, Busybox (and SFLC) tried to contact them, and got no response.

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 3:10 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

More to that point by Rob Landley on Groklaw here. Basically it seems that the firm stopped corresponding, leaving asking the courts as the only way to get satisfaction.

Rob Landley of Busybox on Groklaw

Posted Sep 21, 2007 3:21 UTC (Fri) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

Rob wrote this:

It's hard to engage company principals when the company won't take your calls. (Or your emails. And signs for a fedex containing your complaint and your contact info, but haven't replied at all a week later.) The message board shows they aware of the issue internally and that they are capable of responding.

Ok, hypothetical: When a company is confronted by users, they talk trash. Afterwards, when confronted by lawyers, they clam up. Is this a recipe for avoiding a lawsuit?

The SFLC may not quite be at IBM's "blacken the skies of Utah with lawyers" level, but they're not empty cease and desist letters with no resources to back it up either.

To quote lolcats: They are serious lawyers, this is serious lawsuit. (Against invisible defendant at the time...)

As for venue, the SFLC is located in New York, so it's convenient for them to ask for that as the venue. (There was some legal case noticing that the internet is everywhere that's precedent for this, they explained it to me on the phone but it's not my area.) Since copyright is federal this seems to me as much a matter of convenience as anything, but IANAL. :) (Yeah, I know, different precedents in different circuit courts. Not my area. This is why one _has_ lawyers. I happily defer to their expertise in matters of appropriate venue...)

P.S. Thank PJ for all this, she introduced Erik and me to the SFLC back when we declared the "hall of shame" a failure and turned to her for suggestions. We're pretty happy so far... :)

and this, saying that using the SFLC is Busybox's response to the ineffectual vendor response to the Busybox Hall of Shame.

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 21, 2007 15:32 UTC (Fri) by vondo (guest, #256) [Link]

I have no idea what's going on in this case, but it would also seem to make sense, at some point, to make an example of a company which is "stealing" GPLed code.

If companies are planning products get it in their heads that they can use GPLed code, not release the source, and then, IF they are caught, release the source after long "negotiations," there is no real encouragement for them to do the right thing in the first place.

A couple of settlements in cases like this might make GPL violations in the future much less common. So far, free software developers have been MUCH nicer about this than any company would have been.

U.S. GPL lawsuit for BusyBox - profit?

Posted Sep 23, 2007 10:47 UTC (Sun) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

I have no idea what's going on in this case, but it would also seem to make sense, at some point, to make an example of a company which is "stealing" GPLed code.

Exactly. And to do that, they should ask for more damages than just profits. If the damages are supposed to have a penalising effect, they should ask for all *revenues* or triple profits or something like that. If all that happens to a GPL violator is to lose the illegally attained profits, then it also encourages to continue violation, since expectancy of profits remain positive. (You can't really loose, but you can still win, just keep trying...)