A partial ruling in the Vizio GPL suit

[Posted December 25, 2025 by corbet]

The judge in the Vizio GPL-compliance lawsuit has ruled, in a summary judgment, that the GNU General Public License, version 2, does not require the provision of signing keys needed to install modified software on a device.

Read as a whole, the Agreements require Vizio to make the source code available in such a manner that the source code can be readily obtained and modified by Plaintiff or other third parties. While source code is defined to include "the scripts used to control compilation and installation," this does not mean that Vizio must allow users to reinstall the software, modified or otherwise, back onto its smart TVs in a manner that preserves all features of the original program and/or ensures the smart TVs continue to function properly. Rather, in the context of the Agreements, the disputed language means that Vizio must provide the source code in a manner that allows the source code to be obtained and revised by Plaintiff or others for use in other applications.

As the Software Freedom Conservancy, the plaintiff in the case, has pointed out, the judge has ruled against a claim that was never actually made.

SFC has never held the position, nor do we today hold the position, that any version of the GPL (even including GPLv3!) require "that the device continues to function properly" after a user installs their modified version of the copyleft components.

Linus Torvalds, meanwhile, has posted his own take on the ruling that has, as one might imagine, sparked an extended discussion as well.

to post comments

Trying tot redefine reinstall?

Posted Dec 25, 2025 17:42 UTC (Thu) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (6 responses)

The GPL seem really clear that the sources include the scripts and instructions to build and install the program. Which is exactly why I use it myself.

It feels like this tries to redefine what reinstall means by adding that it also means the device on which the modified program is installed keeps functioning exactly as before.

But that clearly isn't what the GPL says and isn't what is requested. So why was this motion even filed and ruled upon?

Trying tot redefine reinstall?

Posted Dec 25, 2025 17:58 UTC (Thu) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] (5 responses)

Because Vizio claimed that was what Conservancy was asking for, in the course of arguing against that strawman.

Trying tot redefine reinstall?

Posted Dec 25, 2025 18:16 UTC (Thu) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] (3 responses)

OK. I guess you can ask for a ruling on anything. Just surprised a judge wastes time on it.

So maybe the goal is simply to waste time and cause confusion pretending that install and reinstall mean different things?

It feels a bit like this isn't really arguing against user rights under the GPL to install modified versions of the program but that even by complying with the GPL the manufacturer can still refuse the right to repair for the proprietary blobs?

Trying tot redefine reinstall?

Posted Dec 26, 2025 18:47 UTC (Fri) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link] (2 responses)

To me it looks more like the Judge is just clarifying what installations are. I could imagine that managers at Vizio or elsewhere don't really understand this, and of course would assume the worse. This should be obvious for us developers, but that's not who the audience is for this Judge. I'm happy he wrote what he wrote, as perhaps it will make non technically managers more comfortable with using Linux in the devices the ship.

Trying tot redefine reinstall?

Posted Dec 27, 2025 18:52 UTC (Sat) by Heretic_Blacksheep (subscriber, #169992) [Link] (1 responses)

The law runs on definitions. Lay people may dismiss this as semantics, but it's a fundamental of the practice of US law to say what you mean and mean what you say - exactly as stated and no more. That's why most of the better written statutes on the books define core terms to prevent people from shifting a law's meaning into something that fits an agenda that doesn't align with the law's intent as apparently one party tried to do in this case.

When a judge is in doubt because of ambiguity in the law, they usually fall back on how a term is likely understood by the general laity (hence the ruling). Another example of meeting necessary definitions would be all the federal lawsuits that additionally allege RICO violations - and the resultant ire of a federal judge because "the RICO" has a very specific construction and intent that almost no federal lawsuits alleging RICO meet. RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) is narrowly tailored to meet the federal government's need to take down organized crime syndicates, namely the "Five Families of New York" in the 1970s but also others since then. It's become a punctuation mark in federal lawsuits trying to win public opinion aspects as a "we think these are really bad people!!!111" mark instead where lawyers have been ignoring the definitions of the statute to try to make spectacle.

Trying tot redefine reinstall?

Posted Jan 8, 2026 8:58 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

And in the UK, sometimes the law runs on Hansard ... :-)

Definitions are very important, but we've had a couple of cases where one side said "the law says ..." (and they were right), and the judges responded "But Hansard says" (the MPs were lied to), and they were, so the judges ruled "the law is invalid, passed by deception".

Cheers,
Wol

Strawmen all the way down

Posted Dec 25, 2025 21:28 UTC (Thu) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link]

> ... arguing against that strawman.

= most of public discourse nowadays. Intentionally and not.

Communication is hard: you can never completely understand someone else. So it's much safer and more "reliable" to argue with oneself. In the same vein: prefer screens to minimize live interactions and exposure to different opinions. The latter can hurt!

How often do you see opinions actually evolve online? LWN comments is one of those rare non-echo chambers where it can still happen BTW.

It's sad to see even judges falling for this now... but judges can't stay forever isolated from new (a)social norms.

Don't get me wrong: even the entirety of public discourse still comes from a very small minority. And millions of views or clicks does not necessarily mean millions of people in full agreement. So there is still a chance "real" people are interested in listening to more than themselves.

Elections should be a better metric than clicks but voting systems have been getting from bad to worse :-(

Judge is old news

Posted Dec 25, 2025 17:57 UTC (Thu) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (1 responses)

I thought that the key situation with v2 is long known. That's why GPLv3 was created 20 years ago, to prevent "tivoization".

Judge is old news

Posted Dec 26, 2025 19:07 UTC (Fri) by ATLief (subscriber, #166135) [Link]

Later in the ruling the judge says: "However, nothing in the language of the Agreements requires Vizio to allow modified source code to be reinstalled on its devices while ensuring the devices remain operable after the source code is modified. If this was the intent of the Agreements, the Agreements could have been readily modified to state that users must be permitted to modify and reinstall modified software on products which use the program while ensuring the products continue to function."

That sounds exactly like the GPLv3.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 25, 2025 18:10 UTC (Thu) by sashal (✭ supporter ✭, #81842) [Link] (26 responses)

Just my personal opinion:

In their court filings, SFC said Vizio must provide source code and scripts so that "a person of ordinary skill can compile the source code into a functional executable and install it onto the same device, such that all features of the original program are retained". Vizio interpreted this as SFC demanding that the TV "continue to function properly" after reinstalling modified software.

SFC now says Vizio mischaracterized their position. They claim "all features of the original program" meant the GPL software itself (like the kernel) should work and not that the entire TV with its proprietary bloatware.

The problem is SFC's original language was ambiguous: "All features of the original program are retained" could reasonably be read either way. Vizio likely just played it safe.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 25, 2025 21:36 UTC (Thu) by hvd (guest, #128680) [Link] (18 responses)

I'm not sure how "and install it onto the same device", where the device only accepts signed firmware, can be read in any way that is consistent with the (to my understanding) commonly held interpretation of the GPL. At least that aspect of it I think it's right that the judge shot it down: the source code needs to be provided, and enough needs to be provided to transform that source code into functional object code, but if that functional object code can only run on other devices, devices that are not locked down, the GPL says nothing about that, does it?

ambiguity

Posted Dec 25, 2025 22:06 UTC (Thu) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link] (17 responses)

> For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 0:56 UTC (Fri) by hvd (guest, #128680) [Link] (14 responses)

That says "installation of the executable", but not "installation of the executable on the same device", hence the judge's ruling.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 2:10 UTC (Fri) by marcH (subscriber, #57642) [Link] (13 responses)

The image created by the original scripts is very likely specific to a certain TV model. Which means there is no "other device" that can run an unsigned image. So what does "installation of the executable" mean when there is no device that can run it? Debatable.

What is not debatable: the GPLv3 was very clearly designed to stop "Tivoization", because the GPLv2 clearly did not take it into account. So, projects not upgrading and taking a v2 versus v3 stance are OK with Tivoization. Spirit of the license versus letter of the license?

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 3:15 UTC (Fri) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link]

There is a difference between "the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable" (as the GPLv2 says) and "any methods, procedures, authorization keys, or other information required to install and execute modified versions of a covered work" (as the GPLv3 says, in the context of a "User Product," which has a whole bunch of other verbiage that I'm not quoting here).

The judge's opinion does not say exactly where to draw the line, but here are some hypothetical things that *might* be "installation scripts" under GPLv2:

- A script that places binaries in /usr/bin etc., assuming that is the name of the directory where the real product keeps its binaries.
- A script that creates an unsigned image suitable for use with e.g. Docker.
- A script that constructs a .deb or .rpm package.

This is further complicated by the fact that, in this case, the software we care about is the kernel. So /usr/bin is probably irrelevant, but then I don't know precisely what it means to "install" a kernel (as distinguished from installing an entire OS including the kernel). Maybe configuring GRUB etc. to boot into it? Maybe constructing initrd/initramfs or whatnot? It seems underspecified.

I think the most plausible position for Vizio to take is that they are only required to provide things that are either directly based on something in Linus's tree, or direct replacements for something in Linus's tree. So if Linus has an "installation" script in the upstream kernel, and Vizio has a script that performs an analogous operation, then maybe Vizio has to provide that script (even if it is not based on Linus's script). But if Vizio does something that Linus has never provided (like code signing), then they will argue that it's out of scope.

I have no idea if the judge will sign off on that interpretation, but it does at least look to be compatible with what the judge wrote.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 16:31 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (11 responses)

> So, projects not upgrading and taking a v2 versus v3 stance are OK with Tivoization.

Cart. Horse. Which is which? (a serious question).

The GPLv3 is NOT a PURE software licence. So Tivoisation aside, it is NOT a drop-in replacement for v2.

You can have plenty of reasons for rejecting v3, in which Tivoisation just does not feature at all ... my biggest beef is that v3 is a patent licence, amongst other things ...

Cheers,
Wol

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 16:39 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (10 responses)

Whoops - should have said not a pure COPYRIGHT licence.

Cheers,
Wol

ambiguity

Posted Dec 27, 2025 15:29 UTC (Sat) by cyphar (subscriber, #110703) [Link] (9 responses)

GPLv2 also contains text about patents but is intended to provide something akin to an implicit patent grant (my understanding is that the view of Stallman and the FSF was that they did not want to endorse the concept of software patents back in 1991). Unfortunately, defensive patent licenses really are quite necessary to avoid patent trolls, and most modern licenses include them for that reason.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 28, 2025 16:13 UTC (Sun) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (8 responses)

Dunno how this fits in with my philosophy, but I would simply have, as my "patent licence", a statement that "the software authors' opinion is that software is mathematics and cannot be patented. By copying this software you agree with the authors that this software cannot be patented, and agree not to launch any patent suits for technology in this software. This agreement places absolutely no restrictions whatsoever upon the use of patents for self-defense or a counter-offensive".

Cheers,
Wol

ambiguity

Posted Jan 1, 2026 0:56 UTC (Thu) by NYKevin (subscriber, #129325) [Link] (7 responses)

> This agreement places absolutely no restrictions whatsoever upon the use of patents for self-defense or a counter-offensive

This carries exactly the same problem as the JSLint license's infamous line "the software shall be used for good, not evil." Nobody knows exactly which patent actions count as "self-defense or a counter-offensive."

Suppose party A sues party B for infringing a patent on industrial process Q, which happens to involve software as one component in a larger manufacturing process (see e.g. Diamond v. Diehr). Does that give party B the right to sue party A "for self-defense"? For that matter, does such a lawsuit fall under the proposed patent-exclusion term in the first place? Where do you draw the line between software and hardware?

ambiguity

Posted Jan 1, 2026 2:24 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (6 responses)

> Where do you draw the line between software and hardware?

Can you print it on a piece of paper? Is it something that gets fed through an Arithmetic Logic Unit? (Hence the claim that software is mathematics. As soon as something physical happens, that's hardware. If it's maths, the physical representation is an implementation detail. if it IS the implementation detail then it's hardware.)

> Nobody knows exactly which patent actions count as "self-defense or a counter-offensive."

If you're sued "for using the software", then any action you take in response is self-defense. If you're sued for using someone else's industrial process, that's hardware, and no a counter-suit is not self-defense for "using the software".

Cheers,
Wol

ambiguity

Posted Jan 1, 2026 16:25 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (5 responses)

So the engine design in my car is software, because it can be printed on paper, and was fed through lots of ALUs during the design process, and thus any patent that's infringed as a consequence of design decisions is a software patent?

And if I'm sued for using the software as part of an industrial process, where the software is the part of the system that implements the invention, then I'm allowed to counter-sue, but if instead of using a microcontroller, a sensor, and software to implement the feedback loop, I used the simpler mechanical equivalent, I'm not?

These sorts of edge cases are why it takes a lawyer to think it through - and why simpler is better (e.g. "you are using a patent if you sue someone first; you are defending yourself with a patent if it's a counter-suit").

ambiguity

Posted Jan 1, 2026 20:38 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

This is where you want to shoot all lawyers :-)

> So the engine design in my car is software, because it can be printed on paper, and was fed through lots of ALUs during the design process,

Well, it could be ... I think I missed the distinction "fed into the instruction register" as opposed to "fed into the data registers", but see the next point ...

> and thus any patent that's infringed as a consequence of design decisions is a software patent?

No, definitely not. It's all meta, or is that meta-meta, or even meta-meta-meta?

> These sorts of edge cases are why it takes a lawyer to think it through - and why simpler is better (e.g. "you are using a patent if you sue someone first; you are defending yourself with a patent if it's a counter-suit").

Well, the first question is "what exactly have you patented"? Let's take your engine blueprint (on paper), and my software (on paper). I think any judge, presented with a claim that you've patented the paper, will laugh you out of court.

So. Have you patented what's on the paper? As far as the software goes, that IS the software, that is a software patent. The blueprint? If you've patented the blueprint itself, what rights exactly does that give you? The right to stop someone feeding it through a photocopier and colouring it in?

Or the right to feeding the instructions on the paper into a CNC milling machine, and making the object described by the paper? That right exists, it's called a Design Patent, but there are rarely any instructions on the paper itself, you have to put a load of work in yourself to create the physical object. You can't do that with my program - this step can't exist - the patented object is the object ON the paper, not described by the paper.

Or is it the right to actually USE the object that you created from the blueprint that is covered by the patent - what we normally think of as a patent - a meta-meta-meta claim.

So any patent infringed by USING the software is a software patent - any patent infringed by using the RESULTS FROM the software is outwith the purview of the licence.

> And if I'm sued for using the software as part of an industrial process, where the software is the part of the system that implements the invention, then I'm allowed to counter-sue,

Eggsackerly. You have been sued for using the software. If the software drives mechanical linkages, and you're sued over them, then that's not a software patent (but then you've not been sued for using the software!).

> but if instead of using a microcontroller, a sensor, and software to implement the feedback loop, I used the simpler mechanical equivalent, I'm not?

No. You're not being sued for using software. You're being sued for using a mechanical controller, which is exactly what patents are meant to protect!

Cheers,
Wol

ambiguity

Posted Jan 2, 2026 11:19 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (3 responses)

But the patent can't cover the machine without software (motors, sensors etc are old tech, and not eligible for patent protection as a result), and I can run the software in isolation.

Unless, of course, you're saying that if the software is controlled by touch and movement sensors, and causes hardware to emit sound, movement or light, then it's patentable - but in that case, all software is effectively patentable, since I just add in details of the hardware that you use to run the software to make it patentable.

ambiguity

Posted Jan 2, 2026 13:53 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

> But the patent can't cover the machine without software (motors, sensors etc are old tech, and not eligible for patent protection as a result), and I can run the software in isolation.

That's exactly the point. If it can't cover the machine without software, then it's clearly a software patent, and as such it is explicitly not patentable in Europe.

Likewise, if you run the software with no hardware attached, it's clearly a software patent and again not patentable. (Plus, without hardware attached, it can't do anything so what exactly are you patenting?)

If you can't patent the hardware, you can't patent anything, because "do it with a computer" is not patentable.

As I said, what exactly are you patenting? Patenting software is the same as patenting a blueprint. And if you're patenting the blueprint itself, what exactly is it you've got? Something pretty worthless.

Cheers,
Wol

ambiguity

Posted Jan 2, 2026 14:12 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (1 responses)

So I build an unpatentable machine with 1990s tech, add a modern microcontroller, and the process that was previously patentable (since the patent talks about how to do it with hardware) is no longer patent protected, because I'm simulating the patented hardware in software instead?

The patent is on a machine that does something useful - the trick you're opening up is to reimplement the patented machine using 1990s hardware and a (possibly quite powerful) microcontroller, such that the patented process is done by the microcontroller instead of being done by hardware, and the machine does not do the patented process without the software loaded into it.

This is, BTW, how we've ended up with software patents in Europe - the software in and of itself is not patentable, but the combination of software with hardware is patentable where the same combination could be achieved without the software. It's almost the exact opposite of your claim about what makes a patent a software patent - a patent is a software patent in Europe if, and only if, the implementation of the patent requires software, but the mere fact of moving a process from hardware to software does not protect you from patent infringement if the combined machine infringes the patent.

And yes, this means that "do it with a computer" is potentially patentable - as long as the patent can be implemented without the computer, "do it with a computer" is covered, too.

ambiguity

Posted Jan 2, 2026 15:14 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> This is, BTW, how we've ended up with software patents in Europe - the software in and of itself is not patentable, but the combination of software with hardware is patentable where the same combination could be achieved without the software. It's almost the exact opposite of your claim about what makes a patent a software patent - a patent is a software patent in Europe if, and only if, the implementation of the patent requires software, but the mere fact of moving a process from hardware to software does not protect you from patent infringement if the combined machine infringes the patent.

At which point, when push comes to shove (if it ever does), some smartypants lawyer will successfully use that to prove "true = false". And leave the Judges with a big headache. Pity Groklaw has gone, but I suspect as soon as any of these patents are actually challenged in court (yes, I'm aware the EPO has been issuing them with gay abandon) and the patenter is asked "what, exactly, have you patented?", then the whole house of cards will come collapsing down.

Can't point you to the details, sorry, but there was a case went to USPTO some years back, where a PRO-software-patents judge said, in a concurring opinion, that he agreed with the decision that in this particular case the software could not be patented and he could not personally conceive of any situation where software could pass the patentability bar.

In court you would simply argue that you are using a load of patent-expired technology, running a list of instructions on a computer (not patentable because it's just using a computer AS A COMPUTER), to control some ancient machinery (obvious). Where in that is the patentable step? Just because the EPO has been gaily issuing "do it with a computer" patents, doesn't mean they will survive scrutiny in court.

How many patents actually survive a challenge for inventin' the bleedin' obvious? Pretty much none. My employer was sued by a (-: Norwegian Blue :-) supplier for breaching their patents - we *had* to fight. And I don't know whether they got sanctioned - I think they might have done - but they certainly got slammed for bringing a baseless lawsuit. The problem is fighting a patent lawsuit is expensive, but in our case it was much cheaper to fight than to cave. And it probably cost them their patent portfolio :-)

Cheers,
Wol

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 2:54 UTC (Fri) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link] (1 responses)

Way back when, the FSF had computers you could get accounts on, which had Emacs installed. You could get the compiled Emacs executable, and you could get the source and compile it yourself, but you were unable to install a modified version on the FSF's computer (in /usr/bin) because you didn't have the root password. Presumably, they weren't violating the GPL. The difference in the Vizio case is that it's (supposedly) your hardware that you don't have the ability to write to, rather than the hardware belonging to someone else, but the GPL doesn't have any way to distinguish someone who owns the device from anyone else the firmware was distributed to.

ambiguity

Posted Jan 9, 2026 23:14 UTC (Fri) by anton (subscriber, #25547) [Link]

The difference in the Vizio case is that it's (supposedly) your hardware that you don't have the ability to write to

According to the article, the judge ruled: "this does not mean that Vizio must allow users to reinstall the software, modified or otherwise, back onto its smart TVs", so he is apparently not talking about your or my hardware, but only about Vizio's hardware (i.e., before they sell it).

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 3:15 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (3 responses)

The problem is SFC's original language was ambiguous: "All features of the original program are retained" could reasonably be read either way.

The GPL talks about “the Program” when it means “the work licensed under the GPL”. This is clearly the Linux kernel (and/or possibly some other separately-licensed GPL code on the TV) but not the non-GPL software added by the manufacturer and included on the device by “mere aggregation” (GPLv2 section 2). The GPL requires that you should be able to change the Program, i.e., in this case the Linux kernel, and get your modified version to run on the device, but it makes no claim about the non-GPL software – the non-GPL software could check that, e.g., the Linux kernel has a certain cryptographic hash and refuse to run if that wasn't the case, which would be perfectly acceptable as far as the GPL is concerned. In that case you would still have a functional Linux kernel running on the TV on which you could install your own application (possibly but not limited to one that received some sort of TV signal and rendered that on the TV screen).

I don't think that when the SFC said “the program” they meant “everything on the TV, regardless of the license”, because (Linus Torvalds' comments notwithstanding) I do believe that the SFC can actually read, as well as differentiate between the GPLed and proprietary components of the TV's software package.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 12:09 UTC (Fri) by sashal (✭ supporter ✭, #81842) [Link] (2 responses)

> The GPL talks about “the Program” when it means “the work licensed under the GPL”

SFC didn't say "the Program" (capitalized, as the GPL uses it), they said "the original program" (lowercase) and specifically "all features of the original program are retained." If they meant the narrow GPL definition, why not use the GPL's actual terminology?

And why "all features"? The word "feature" isn't defined in the GPL nor does it appear in the GPL at all.

If SFC was trying to articulate what the GPL requires, they introduced a word ("features") that has no GPL meaning. So now we're interpreting SFC's gloss on the GPL, not the GPL itself. On the other hand, it also means SFC can't fall back on "we were just using GPL terminology", they chose to say "all features of the original program are retained" which is their own formulation and "all features retained" in plain English does suggest a fairly high bar: not just "it compiles" but "it works like it did before."

All I'm saying is that the SFC's response that triggered Vizio's motion could be reasonably understood in multiple ways.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 13:38 UTC (Fri) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (1 responses)

I agree that if the SFC had meant “the Program” in the GPL sense, they would have done better to capitalise the P. OTOH, I haven't seen the SFC's original submission, and whether there was a “p” or a “P” in the original submission that was then (mis?)quoted by Vizio in their motion or the court in its summary judgement should be checked.

As far as the word “features” go, a Program obviously has features even if the GPL doesn't say so explicitly. The GPL is – implicitly – all about adding new features to the Program or changing the ones that are already there. The expectation on the part of the GPL is that if you take the TV set's Linux kernel source code as provided by Vizio under the GPL, recompile it, and deploy it to the TV set (which according to the GPL you should be able to do), it should have the features of a Linux kernel. The features of the TV set as a whole are another concern - in particular, whether the proprietary TV application on the TV likes your self-compiled Linux kernel enough to make the TV set as a whole work just as it would with the kernel binary provided by Vizio is a different question entirely that the GPL does not address.

Finally, the question remains why the SFC didn't clarify its position vis-à-vis the scope of the word “program” to the court before the summary judgment. The SFC has been around long enough to be aware that the GPL can't regulate the behaviour of non-GPL code that happens to be on the same TV set (after all they argue exactly that in their after-the-fact blog post), so the sensible thing would have been to make it unambiguously clear earlier in the process that this is indeed not what they are after.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 13:50 UTC (Fri) by sashal (✭ supporter ✭, #81842) [Link]

Ack. The SFC should really have been clearer on this from the beginning.

The judge has also mentioned it in his ruling:

> Plaintiff’s interrogatory response can be reasonably construed to include the issue raised in the motion.
> Moreover, Plaintiff has chosen to oppose the motion on the merits rather than concede the issue of duty
> raised in the motion, indicating Plaintiff alleges the disputed duty applies to Defendant. Moreover,
> Defendant cites paragraphs 116 and 118 of Plaintiff’s FAC and the testimony of Plaintiff’s witnesses
> which have asserted the existence of such a duty.

Which doesn't stop SFC from writing "Unfortunately, Vizio's motion is likely to confuse the public" in their blog post, even though the ones causing this confusion are the SFC themselves.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 11:46 UTC (Fri) by npws (subscriber, #168248) [Link]

So if the SFC felt their position was misrepresented, they could have simply clarified or corrected it, not whine about it afterwards. Very unbelievable.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 16:52 UTC (Fri) by nivedita76 (subscriber, #121790) [Link] (1 responses)

I feel like the SFC is overly fixated on one particular phrase, which is in fact only connected by an “and/or”, ie according to the ruling, the license doesn’t require the ability to reinstall in a manner that even preserves the original features of the program, regardless of whether the whole thing works or not.
As a matter of fact, I would go further, I don’t see where the GPLv2 requires the ability to reinstall at all. It requires the provision of the scripts that were used for installation, it does not require that the end user be able to actually use those scripts to install the software. It doesn’t impose any conditions on installation at all, and it has explicit language stating it only covers copying, distribution and modification; and installation doesn’t come under those. It’s not something that’s obvious from the installation script requirement, the license shouldn’t preclude the case that the hardware doesn’t even have the ability to reinstall software after manufacturing, for eg.
The right to mess with the device that you bought might have been in the back of someone’s mind when they came up with the idea of free software, but it isn’t part of what the license itself says are its intentions: “… the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software…” This makes no mention of making the hardware that the software runs on in any way free. You can change the software, but if you want to run the changed software, there’s no guarantee that you will be able to do it on the hardware, if any, that was packaged with the software.

ambiguity

Posted Dec 26, 2025 23:35 UTC (Fri) by audric (guest, #86999) [Link]

> As a matter of fact, I would go further, I don’t see where the GPLv2 requires the ability to reinstall at all. It requires the provision of the scripts that were used for installation, it does not require that the end user be able to actually use those scripts to install the software. It doesn’t impose any conditions on installation at all

Totally agree with that take. I had to do a bit of a deep dive into licensing at my previous job, and our conclusion as devs was that the language was so obtuse that we resorted to rely on the legal department answer (which I unfortunately could not get before getting fired during a company restructuration). My own take was that you are require to deliver all the Makefiles/script/whatever that can a user to end up with a binary on their *build* machine, as well as any script that is used to put that binary onto the device. But nowhere it is clear (and please correct me if you have references!) that you need to allow the user to install said binary onto the device.

I feel this is a case of while it was the intention, it's not actually properly transcribed in the text of the GPLv2.

Other violators

Posted Dec 26, 2025 7:07 UTC (Fri) by wt (subscriber, #11793) [Link] (1 responses)

Harbor Freight sells devices that probably violate the GPL in the same way. Their ICON scan told are Android based and have no source code offer.

Other violators

Posted Dec 26, 2025 15:56 UTC (Fri) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Also, the bObsweep robot vacuums run Linux. Or at any rate, the bObsweep Pet Hair Plus model does. I've asked for source code and have been given nothing but runarounds. They did give me a pointer to some linux-sunx repo on GitHub, but it does not correspond to what's actually running on the machine.

Don't buy a bObsweep vacuum.

Not much of a discussion.. Yawn

Posted Dec 28, 2025 5:08 UTC (Sun) by ssmith32 (subscriber, #72404) [Link] (1 responses)

I wouldn't really call it an "extended discussion", given that no one is actually talking to each other.

- Linus made his claims about the SFC and the GPL.
- SFC stated that the claims were incorrect, because they promulgated what they view as Vizio's strawman argument.
- Ian Kelling (head of FSF), pointed out the authors of the GPL disagree with Linus's claims.
- a bunch of folks posted +1 or -1 posts, and then start tangents about some other random thing that was on their mind.
- No one constructively engages with anyone else beyond the initial rebuttals from Ian K & the SFC.

TLDR; Once again, we see a person who is really good at one thing (A) deciding that makes them experts at some thing (B) they have exactly zero experience practicing (or even pursuing the study of), and that they just *must* use the megaphone success gives them to talk about said thing B. They're smart, so there's a chance they might be on to something, and an intelligent discussion may help reveal that.

However, instead of an intelligent discussion, the Internet crowd just piggybacks on the megaphone to talk past each other about random stuff.

Which is all fine and good, but...

I mean, I appreciate the note about the progress in the SFC case because I donate (to both SFC & FSF), and I'm curious if I'm wasting my money..... but when LWN claims an "extended discussion", I'm kinda hoping for something more than what I'd find by joining Twitter and reading threads where Elon opines on effectively delivering food aid or health policy... Instead I wasted my time reading yet another typical Internet "discussion" looking for the actual discussion.

The discussion on _this_ article was little better, to be clear. Just annoyed that I wasted time reading through the comments on Linus's blog post looking for something interesting.

Not much of a discussion.. Yawn

Posted Dec 29, 2025 18:18 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

FWIW, I stopped reading once I got to the "omg, Linus is in my feed"-style responses. It's a handy litmus test of where the discussion is headed (especially on low-effort "microblogging" platforms. The sub-par threading support only exacerbates the ability to skip over such noise.