| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settledMonsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settledPosted Oct 30, 2007 18:51 UTC (Tue) by mikov (subscriber, #33179)In reply to: Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled by jwb Parent article: Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled
What types of defendants ? Monsoon said from the beginning, even before this silly lawsuit was filed, that they intended to comply. I am guessing that it wasn't their first priority because: - BusyBox probably wasn't the most important part of the project - they didn't make any modifications to it Even if they were violating the letter of the license, they weren't really violating its spirit. Rejoice. Now we have one more mirror from where to download BusyBox. This is a tremendous win for Free Software :-) Don't get me wrong, I love the GPL and I support Free Software. I very much respect the authors of BusyBox. I even respect RMS. But I hate lawsuits. And I can't avoid the feeling that had they waited a couple of weeks more, there wouldn't have been a need for one at all. This wasn't some big evil corporation that was taught a hard lesson. Instead, as I understand it, this is a relatively small guy, using Linux for its boxes. Which is supposed to be a good thing. Now, I wonder, if there is a choice in the future between GPL and BSD software, which one would Monsoon pick ?
(Log in to post comments)
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 30, 2007 19:30 UTC (Tue) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] In what sense were they respecting the spirit, when they refused to provide source code?The FSF has obtained compliance from hundreds of violators by quiet negotiation. For years, RMS followed this strategy because he was interested in compliance with the license, not in litigation. In this case, a lawsuit needed to be filed because the defendant was uncooperative. Also, it won't do if people are allowed to object, drag their feet, kick and scream for months, and then finally and grudgingly release source code, with no other penalty. If that's allowed, everyone will do it. The fact is that if you violate GPLv2, your license terminates, meaning that you can't distribute the software at all, until the copyright holder explicitly permits you to. (This is actually an area where GPLv3 has a less severe penalty than GPLv2). Remember the stink that happened when RMS said he forgave KDE for the past copyright violations from when QT had an incompatible license? He was attacked by people who didn't understand that the forgiveness was legally necessary: without it, those who distributed KDE would be forbidden from distributing the FSF code that had been linked with some KDE applications. In this case, Monsoon forfeited its rights to distribute BusyBox at all, and they needed to do this settlement to get their rights back.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 30, 2007 20:17 UTC (Tue) by MattPerry (guest, #46341) [Link] > Remember the stink that happened when RMS said he forgave KDE for the past > copyright violations from when QT had an incompatible license? He was > attacked by people who didn't understand that the forgiveness was legally > necessary: without it, those who distributed KDE would be forbidden from > distributing the FSF code that had been linked with some KDE applications. It was also in poor taste, since as the KDE people pointed out none of the KDE software contained GPL code from other software. The KDE authors were the copyright holders and were free to do as they wished with their code. There wasn't any FSF-copyrighted code that was linked with KDE.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 30, 2007 21:33 UTC (Tue) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] MattPerry wrote:The KDE authors were the copyright holders and were free to do as they wished with their code. There wasn't any FSF-copyrighted code that was linked with KDE. One refuting counter-example, off the top of my head: kfloppy, part of kdeutils. Upstream copyright owner is, as you can verify, FSF. I've not bothered to study that case in years, and never tried to collect more of the above sort of particulars. (Very likely, there were lots more-significant codebases than "kfloppy".) However, at the time, I was going around saying the same sorts of things you were, except in the form of questions out of wariness: "Whose copyright is being infringed, given that the KDE coders wrote all the code? And what business does FSF have opining on the matter or forgiving infringement?" Turned out, my assumptions (and yours) were mistaken, and a friend was kind enough to cite kfloppy to me as an illustrative example. Rick Moen
Also ... Posted Oct 31, 2007 6:11 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] ... in his "forgiveness" message, RMS urged any other copyright holders that were infringed by KDE to forgive any violations as well. It's true that the KDE authors wrote almost all the code themselves, but as Rick points out, not all of it. So thanks to Trolltech fixing the QT license as well as these acts of forgiveness, KDE became legally clean. Too bad that some bitterness remained, even to this day.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 31, 2007 8:29 UTC (Wed) by boudewijn (subscriber, #14185) [Link] You're wrong, according to the research KDE did at the time. To quote http://www.kde.org/announcements/rmsresponse.php: "There are only two parts of KDE that have GPLed code not written explicitely for KDE -- a small bit in kmidi and a few lines in kghostview."
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 31, 2007 22:50 UTC (Wed) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] "boudewijn" wrote:You're wrong, according to the research KDE did at the time. Sadly, this merely proves conclusively that the "research KDE did at the time" was, itself, incorrect. You can verify the example I gave, for yourself, by downloading a kdeutils source tarball and observing the presence of FSF's copyright notice, plain as day, in the kfloppy subdirectory. It's a bit late in the day to track down what else they missed in composing their "KDE 'Official' Response to Stallman Editorial", but I do wonder about the extent of their undercounting. (I see third-party claims of the day about vt, kghostview/kgv, kdvi, kmidi, kscd, and others, but a single verified example suffices to make the point.) Rick Moen
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 31, 2007 10:29 UTC (Wed) by etienne_lorrain@yahoo.fr (guest, #38022) [Link] > The fact is that if you violate GPLv2, your license terminates, meaning that you > can't distribute the software at all, until the copyright holder explicitly permits you to. > (This is actually an area where GPLv3 has a less severe penalty than GPLv2). GPLv2 extract: Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. If you loose "your rights under this License", you loose the right to even use the GPL: to use GCC, to use cygwin, to use Linux. What else than the GPL enable you to run even once, on your PC, a copyrighted work? IANAL.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 31, 2007 12:50 UTC (Wed) by AnoymousCoward (guest, #48794) [Link]
You're not a lawyer indeed. To answer your questions:
Of course, IANAL either.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 31, 2007 17:37 UTC (Wed) by etienne_lorrain@yahoo.fr (guest, #38022) [Link] IANAL, but I do not think you are allowed to have a copy of a copyrighted work on your PC, backup and use that copy, without any agreement whatsoever with the copyright owner. The only autorisation would comes from the GPL, that is probably one of the "rights" you lost by not having acepted the GPL requirements.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Nov 2, 2007 10:47 UTC (Fri) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] Copyright deals primarily with the right to make /copies/ of a work. That's why it's named the way it is. Sort of a -duh-. It also includes certain closely related rights, such as the right to publicly perform a work. But yes, you are perfectly allowed to -have- a copyrighted book in your bookshelf, or a copyrighted program in your computer, with no "license" whatsoever. It's only when you want to start making *copies* of that book, or that program, that you need the permission of the copyright-holder. Backups depend on your jurisdiction. In saner jurisdictions you're allowed to make limited copies for your own use of copyrighted works, but this varies with jurisdiction.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Nov 2, 2007 13:02 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] Of course in some jurisdictions you're not allowed to do anything useful with that copy on disk, as that involves making a copy in memory. The degree of stupidity of this approach is obvious to anyone with the least modicum of clue, but it hasn't been fixed... one advantage of the iPod and friends is that this sort of thing may finally *get* fixed, because everyone and his dog including lots of legislators are now doing format-shifting and so on and expect it to be legal. If format-shifting is legal, `copying into memory' certainly is.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Nov 2, 2007 13:53 UTC (Fri) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] Yeah, like I said, it depends. In Norway it's also kinda insane, but not that insane. Here you're /generally/ allowed to make a "limited number" of copies of a copyrigthed work for personal use. Personal use includes close friends and family, so here it's actually explicitly allowed to say make a compilation-cd with 15 of your kid-sisters favourite songs for her. There's however an exception for programs. You're *not* allowed to make a copy of the newest computer-game and give it to a close friend of yours. You are however allowed to make any copies needed for normal usage of the program. Courts have ruled that this includes the rigth to take backups, backing up a computer is "normal usage" of the computer. Industry is figthing tooth-and-nail to kill the limited copies thing, or if that doesn't work (which seems currently likely) to make people *BELIEVE* that any copying is illegal.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 30, 2007 19:46 UTC (Tue) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] The GPL (and LGPL) require something very simple before even getting to "derived work" and complicated legal matter: when you distribute [L]GPLed code you must inform the recient and must either provide them the source or a written offer to provide the source. They never bothered. Not even after clients explicitly asked them. Not even after the Busybox authors asked them nicely. But a call from a lawyer and suddenly they become very nice and cooperative. The authors of Busybox have tried other methods before: http://www.busybox.net/shame.html Anyway, the company is not a "small guy". It is run by "Graham Radstone is a lawyer with over 20 years international business experience. He has held senior positions in some of the world's leading multinational companies that has included DHL, Philip Morris and Pfizer". http://www.monsoonmultimedia.com/executives.html
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 31, 2007 3:04 UTC (Wed) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] > But I hate lawsuits. And I can't avoid the feeling that had they waited a couple of weeks more, there wouldn't have been a need for one at all. I, too, dislike lawsuits. But, I think that the FSF had exhausted all other options (including just "sitting around" and waiting for Monsoon Multimedia to comply with the GPL. The FSF should be commended for following through procedurally on its quest to keep Free Software free. > Now, I wonder, if there is a choice in the future between GPL and BSD software, which one would Monsoon pick? This assumes that there is a BSD-licensed alternative to BusyBox. Does such a software package exist? (I honestly don't know.)
The FSF wasn't involved Posted Oct 31, 2007 6:05 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Eben Moglen also represents the FSF, but in this case he and the SFLC represented the BusyBox authors.
The FSF wasn't involved Posted Nov 2, 2007 4:41 UTC (Fri) by pr1268 (subscriber, #24648) [Link] My most sincere apologies to Eben and the SFLC (and to the FSF.) I was obviously not paying attention to exactly who the plaintiff was in this case. Thank you, JoeBuck (and landley, below), for correcting me.
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Oct 31, 2007 18:31 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] SFLC != FSF. For one thing, the SFLC was quite happy to enforce the busybox license despite busybox being GPLv2 only (no "or later" clause, meaning no GPLv3 for the project ever). The FSF seems to think that sticking with GPLv2 shows a lack of purity and commitment to the glorious cause, or some such: http://lwn.net/Articles/176582/
Monsoon Multimedia GPL lawsuit settled Posted Nov 1, 2007 21:06 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] The very comment thread you linked to points out that this is probably because the FSF sees no reason why it should pay to host code it can't use because of license incompatibility. This seems reasonable enough to me. It's not as if the world is short of hosting sites.
|
|
||||||||||||