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SFC expands license compliance effortsSFC expands license compliance effortsPosted Jun 3, 2012 4:12 UTC (Sun) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953)Parent article: SFC expands license compliance efforts
So Sony's plan of a BSD licensed BusyBox clone to avoid the SFC enforcement on all GPL code using the Busybox copyrights just lost it's entire purpose. This is exactly what numerous people said was going to happen after the publicity of the BSD Busybox effort, in that developers from key other projects have stepped forward and giving SFC enforcement rights. So not only is the Kernel in the game but we have Samba, Wine and several others that are key players and used extensively in the commercial Linux ecosystem.
You have to wonder how the people that were complaining about SFC's efforts feel now, given that the Kernel is now available for enforcement as well and there are likely to be far more devices in trouble with the Kernel's GPL requirements than there were with BusyBox.
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SFC expands license compliance efforts Posted Jun 3, 2012 10:01 UTC (Sun) by armijn (subscriber, #3653) [Link]
A few things. First, please stop the Sony FUD as it is simply not true. It has been stated multiple times by both Tim Bird and Rob Landley that Toybox (which is, like BusyBox, a reimplementation of standard Unix and Linux tools) did not come from Sony. Ask Rob, ask Tim, they are both very approachable about this.
Second, Samba has been enforced in the past (as the SFC announcement says), they are just offloading the work onto SFC, so this is not exactly new. Sure, I expect that there will be more enforcement work being done for Samba (and it is badly needed).
Third, Wine is not used as much as you think. I have seen it only a few times in the last 7 years in some management software for wireless devices. Calling them a "key player" in a commercial Linux ecosystem is a bit far fetched. It would be very interesting to see enforcement being done for Wine though.
Fourth, the Linux kernel has already been enforced many times (in Europe). So it is not that it 'is now available'. That would be denying 8 years of enforcement work being done by gpl-violations.org and other copyright holders in the kernel.
You are mixing issues Posted Jun 7, 2012 19:45 UTC (Thu) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] First, please stop the Sony FUD as it is simply not true. It has been stated multiple times by both Tim Bird and Rob Landley that Toybox (which is, like BusyBox, a reimplementation of standard Unix and Linux tools) did not come from Sony. You are mixing issues. It's similar to FSF vs OSI difference. While they support many projects they are not identical and the goals are different. Tim Bird's Busybox replacement project is now pointless. In fact situation for the potential infringers is even worse then it was before. Rob Landley's Toybox which was explicitly revived with the goal "to become the default command line implementation of Android systems everywhere" is alive and well. Fourth, the Linux kernel has already been enforced many times (in Europe). So it is not that it 'is now available'. That would be denying 8 years of enforcement work being done by gpl-violations.org and other copyright holders in the kernel. Again, you are mixing issues. This is not about enforcement in general. This is about enforcement efforts of SFC. Tim Bird quite explicitly said that he started the projects with the goal to make SFC toothless (the very first message says that) - and this plot failed. Now SFC will just enforce Linux kernel copyright directly without using busybox as a crutch. I'm pretty sure this will stop expected massive rush of busybox/toybox switchers: it makes no sense anymore. In this sense SONY's cynical plot failed. But of course replacement may be better in other senses besides the ability to circumvent SFC's encforcers. This means it'll be used by some new projects.
SFC expands license compliance efforts Posted Jun 7, 2012 20:26 UTC (Thu) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]
> So Sony's plan of a BSD licensed BusyBox clone to avoid the SFC
> enforcement on all GPL code using the Busybox copyrights just lost it's > entire purpose.
That's an impressive number of ways to be wrong in a single sentence.
1) Sony's never been behind toybox, they just considered using it. A few of the more clueless armchair lawyers in the FSF's orbit couldn't quite fit the idea in their head that the guy who _started_ all these license enforcement actions now thinks they're a bad idea, so they picked a random corporation to scapegoat.
2) I'm still working on toybox (8 commits to the repository this week). I should cut another release for checkpoint purposes.
3) Binary-only modules; still legal according to Linus. A Legal action could easily _confirm_ that, given that Alsup just ruled that API/ABIs aren't copyrightable in the Oracle case.
4) People speculate about my financial motives for doing toybox (I'd love it if I _was_ paid to work on it, but I'm not and never was) but nobody goes "Bradley's day job is at the conservancy, and this is drumming up business for his employer"...
5) Android's still got a "no GPL in userspace" policy, so Samba changes nothing. I really hope the kernel stuff doesn't drive Google to do a BSD kernel version (which the iPhone and iPad already showed is quite viable here) the way they rewrote the whole of userspace.
> This is exactly what numerous people said was going to happen after the
Because "free software" becoming synonymous with "threat of lawsuit" is really going to improve matters. (Nothing says "hobbyist" like "enforced compliance".)
> So not only is the Kernel in the game but we have Samba, Wine and several
Covered that. No GPL in userspace isn't new.
Linux on the desktop remains somewhere around 1% market share after 30 years of development, even Vista didn't give us a boost. (On the server we displaced AIX, Sun Microsystems, and the DEC Alpha. Woo.) Linux is mainstream interesting because of Android, because smartphones are displacing the PC the way it replaced the minicomputer and mainframe before it and a fork of Linux is #2 there. Note that Linux itself isn't, the _fork_ is. From the same people that rewrote Java from scratch, and whose defense from the Oracle lawsuit is "we're not using your version". And whose main competitor (which makes 3/4 of the profits from this space, ala http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57427811-37/apple-samsu... ) is using a BSD kernel to do so.
And you want to sue them? Really? This is your idea of a smart strategic move?
> You have to wonder how the people that were complaining about SFC's
Sad, and _really_ hoping this doesn't drive Android to rebase on a BSD kernel.
Rob
SFC expands license compliance efforts Posted Jun 7, 2012 22:21 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] Out of curiosity, where did #3 come from? Linus's position is rather more nuanced than you suggest, see here, for example.The module interface is also somewhat removed from a published API.
SFC expands license compliance efforts Posted Jun 14, 2012 19:54 UTC (Thu) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]
> Because "free software" becoming synonymous with "threat of lawsuit" is
> really going to improve matters. (Nothing says "hobbyist" like "enforced > compliance".)
Now, now. This smells a bit like FUD. Which is better, litigation-wise: GPL or proprietary? BSA anyone?
Please. Let's keep cool.
> And you want to sue them? Really? This is your idea of a smart strategic
Read again about the SFC's approach: suing is seen as abolute "ultima ratio".
> Sad, and _really_ hoping this doesn't drive Android to rebase on a BSD
Look. BSD is a fine kernel. It's a perfectly reasonable decision to base one's product on that. If you do embedded Windows, you'd have to abide by Microsoft's conditions, if you do Linux, it's GPL V2 (which is way less burdensome, I assume you'd agree), if you do BSD, then it's the BSD license. Where's the problem?
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