Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction [LWN.net]

Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction

Posted Apr 15, 2004 18:00 UTC (Thu) by talahin (guest, #4595)
In reply to: Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction by QuisUtDeus
Parent article: Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction

"In particular, Sitecom did not make any source code offering or include the GPL license terms with their products."

I think this is at the core of the problem.
If Sitecom uses unmodified netfiler sources it would be enough to point a URL to the original netfilter site and including a printed version of the GPL.

If they did modify Netfiler then it would be expected that the modified sources would be made available. Not only for Sitecoms customers but also for the Netfilter team, so they can learn from it. After all that's what the GPL is all about.

Gerrard

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Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction

Posted Apr 15, 2004 18:18 UTC (Thu) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

> If Sitecom uses unmodified netfiler sources it would be enough to point a URL to the original netfilter site and including a printed version of the GPL.

This is not true. They must provide the source code (or a written offer for it) themselves, not via the Netfilter site. Please read the GPL.

Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction

Posted Apr 16, 2004 8:28 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

No, not if the code is /unmodified/ (as the poster to which you replied
specified). In THAT case, a distributor only has to provide a pointer to
the original code from where THEY got it (or on up the line to the
original project site or developer).

Of course, if they DO modify the code, their modifications to the source
must be open-sourced, that is, they'd need to provide them, since no one
else would be because it was their own mod. However, once again, if those
mods are incorporated back into the main source, the original mod
developer would no longer have to provide source as they could point to
the main source code tree in which they were incorporated.

That, BTW, is one MORE reason to get patches submitted and incorporated
upline.. once they are, you no longer have to offer the source to them
directly, only publicly offer a pointer to the project's own sources in
which your patches have been incorporated.

Duncan (from my understanding of the GPL, altho IANAL..)

Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction

Posted Apr 16, 2004 9:40 UTC (Fri) by dcoutts (subscriber, #5387) [Link]

Quoth he from the GNU GPL, verse 3, point c)

[You must a), b) or c) ]

c) Accompany it[the binary] with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

In other words comercial distributors must always provide full source code or a written offer to provide full source code. You only get to point to a URL/postal address if that's all you got in the first place and you're distribution was noncomercial.

Netfilter gets a GPL-enforcement injunction

Posted Apr 22, 2004 17:55 UTC (Thu) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Aye, but (b) is also a choice:

b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange;

A "medium customarily used for software interchange" would by any modern
definition include the internet as one such medium, PARTICULARLY given the
use of the internet for just such interchange, of Linux and other GPL
licenced software, in general. Thus, a URL would be sufficient.

Then comes the question of whether pointing to the source hosted by
someone else would be sufficient. I think it could be, certainly in a
simple redirect from your site to the other site, so the URL would be
yours, but I could be wrong. However, in any case, the problem if it WAS
hosted by an unrelated third party would be ensuring that it remains up
for the necessary three years. Obviously, you'd be liable if the third
party failed to host it for whatever reason, and most businesses wouldn't
find such liability acceptable. That said, what they /could/ do would be
simply provide a mirror of the original software site, which would neatly
alleviate site update and administration issues, except for the hardware.

Now that I think about it, perhaps that's one reason mirrors of anything
widely used in open source are generally not so hard to find.

Duncan

Duncan