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Diebold faces GPL infringement lawsuit over voting machines (ars technica)
Ars technica covers
the GPL infringement suit against Diebold for its use of Ghostscript in
its voting machines. "Evidence of Diebold's Ghostscript use first
emerged last year when electronic voting machine critic Jim March was
conducting analysis of Pima County voting irregularities. He brought a
technical question to the Ghostscript mailing list relating to his
investigation and mentioned in passing that Diebold's use of Ghostscript
could potentially fall afoul of the GPL. This view was shared by
Ghostscript developer Ralph Giles, who referred the matter to the Artifex
business staff so that it could evaluate the legal implications."
(Log in to post comments)
importance: derivative vs. "mere aggregation" Posted Nov 6, 2008 9:00 UTC (Thu) by pjm (subscriber, #2080) [Link]
From the brief article, it appears that this case will have important implications in establishing the line between "mere aggregation" and "derivative work".
It's good to have murky legal areas cleared up, but I'm not entirely sure we'll like the result: a ruling in one direction risks that the copyleft aspects of the Gnu GPL become less powerful, while a ruling in the other direction risks that one can't re-implement a software component (library etc.) without breaking its copyright, if the "derivative work" argument rests on copyrightability of an interface.
We should tread carefully here.
You are wrong: "mere aggregation" - yes, "derivative" - no Posted Nov 7, 2008 6:06 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] Why people are doing the same mistake again and again? This case is fundamentally different from nVidia case (where we can try to talk about copyrightability of the kernel interface). These guys distributed the code created by others! And they combined it with other software to make coherent bundle. The bundle (Diebold voting machine as whole) is clearly derived product. There are nothing to discuss - except this one special permission in GPL: "mere aggregation" is allowed. Now if it'll be found that copyrightability of the interface is the only criteria for "mere aggregation" (hard to believe, but who knows?) it'll be yet another reason to switch to GPLv3 which includes clear explanation of what "aggregation" means: A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, and which are not combined with it such as to form a larger program, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an aggregate if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit.
You are wrong: "mere aggregation" - yes, "derivative" - no Posted Nov 7, 2008 7:54 UTC (Fri) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
even if this is mere aggregation (distributing ghostscript on the same system as other software), unless they make the source for ghostscript available they are violating the GPL.
since they have gone on record as opposing revealing any source code, even when pressed by the courts, it seems obvious that they aren't fulfilling their responsibility.
now anyone who thinks that becouse they put ghostscript and their propriatary code in the same tarball they have to give out the source for their code is just dreaming, even if they did have to give something out they would only have to give the source to the people they sold the systems to.
on the other hand, I think it would be a good thing to have this tested by the courts and get some official reading on what is a derived work and what isn't. In this case I am sure that the dibold code would not be a derived work, but the ghostscript code would be.
You are wrong: "mere aggregation" - yes, "derivative" - no Posted Nov 17, 2008 23:23 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Dare I suggest you read the GPL?
Your two choices are
(a) give the recipient the SOURCE (optionally accompanied by the binary) and that's the end of all your obligations,
OR (b) distribute binaries, then give source to ANYONE who requests it. If you distribute binary-only, you CAN'T *just* give the source to the people you gave the binary to.
Cheers,
Diebold faces GPL infringement lawsuit over voting machines (ars technica) Posted Nov 6, 2008 12:05 UTC (Thu) by BobT (guest, #37148) [Link]
"We should tread carefully here."
Who is "we"? The copyright holder states:
We do not consider bundling as an integrated component intended
http://www.ghostscript.com/pipermail/gs-devel/2007-Novemb...
But when that was written, it wasn't clear whether the Diebold firm was using a GPLed version of the software. The AFPL version certainly disallows commercial use and it seems likely if you follow the thread that they were in fact using the most recent development version, which would have been AFPLed.
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