Another Netfilter GPL enforcement [LWN.net]

Another Netfilter GPL enforcement

Posted Mar 2, 2004 21:16 UTC (Tue) by mongre26 (guest, #4224)
In reply to: Another Netfilter GPL enforcement by Carl
Parent article: Another Netfilter GPL enforcement

The other thing to consider is that there have been several of these router companies that have used GPL'd software and they have consistently ignored the requirements of the GPL.

One would think that after the successful efforts with Linksys this past summer that these other companies would have seen the writing on the wall and quickly announced their compliance with the GPL. Perhaps now that two more companies have been shown their obligations and have publicly stated they will comply with the GPL more companies will clue in. In the long run I hope that such publicity will mean that there will be much less need to even warn companies.

Hopefully with press releases like those from the netfilter team companies will realize that while they do not have much in the way of financial obligations when using GPL software they nonetheless have other obligations they must meet to make use of this amazing resource that is Free Software.

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Another Netfilter GPL enforcement

Posted Mar 2, 2004 21:53 UTC (Tue) by laf0rge (subscriber, #6469) [Link]

In the end it seems that it was only a very small number of companies. Most of the WLAN routers are built from the same design, and it appears to me that Linksys, Belkin, Buffalo, Allnet and ASUS are all OEM versions of some unknown .tw producer. They get sligthly different firmware images, differntly-shaped cases and differnent vendor tags.

But all we can do is go to the vendors that sell us the devices under their name. They can (and should) in turn recourse against the .tw vendor. This is the only way we can actually rach the ones who started infringement.

I believe companies like FSC (who actually have a completely different hardware and software design than all the others) that they didn't intentionally violate the GPL. They 'just' resell those .tw devices and dont't know what software is in there.

By threatening them with legal action, we raise awareness in the legal and management department of those vendors. Next time they sign a contract with a .tw producer, they'd hopefully be more careful on what they're buying.

It's not sufficient that some technical support staff knows that there is a GPL and there theoretically are some obligations. Precise knowledge about the obligations has to become aware in the non-technical departments.

Another Netfilter GPL enforcement

Posted Mar 3, 2004 8:20 UTC (Wed) by fooker (guest, #14834) [Link]

FYI, the 'Made in Taiwan' tag just means that the devices are manufactured in Taiwan. One can't tell where they are designed. According to your logic most of the big IC companies 'just' resell taiwanese devices with their name slapped on the package. I would suspect that companies whose whole product set consists of network devices would design them in-house. Thus being the original copyright infringers. No shady foreign pirates involved.

You are accusing Taiwan so enthusiasticly that I would assume you have some facts to back up your claims. Or that you had your tinfoil hat on when writing the article.

PS. I was able to decode your 'clever' obfusciation of the country name :-)

Another Netfilter GPL enforcement

Posted Mar 3, 2004 9:55 UTC (Wed) by laf0rge (subscriber, #6469) [Link]

I can back up my claims. From the FSC and Allnet negotiations we know that they both bought ready-built devices. FSC bought from a .tw company, which themselves bought from another .tw company. The original .tw company did have a GPL disclaimer, but the second one missed to forward it to FSC.

From the FSF enforcement in the Linksys case we know that the original design of the device (the same as Allnet, Buffalo, Belkin and a couple of others) came from Broadcom. In fact, I also know that Broadcom required at least one of their customers to sign an NDA _not_ to release any of the source code.

An I am not accusing Taiwan as a country, nor the Taiwanese people. I am accusing the business practise of Taiwanese hardware vendors. And not to care about copyright (and thus the GPL) appears to be more common than actually caring about it.

Another Netfilter GPL enforcement

Posted Mar 3, 2004 15:33 UTC (Wed) by baruch (subscriber, #14769) [Link]

I have worked in a company that supplied software to the taiwanesse companies that developed the hardware for various resellers.

The way I saw it, Linksys et al are only OEMs for hardware developed by ODMs from taiwan, Linksys will mostly supply the requirements and final acceptance testing, hardly any (if at all) development is done in-house.

The general thought-line regarding GPL was: "If we are not forced, we'll do nothing to release back source code of GPL parts". There was though a clear attempt to make as little code be forced into openness.