A GPL compliance case against Iliad

Monday November 19 2007 - PARIS - Several free software writers have
called Iliad, one of the main telecom companies in France, to respect
their work, and a judicial proceeding has begun to demand the respect
of their licence. This action follows repeated refusals of Iliad to
publish the source code of the Free Software included in their Freebox.
Although the writers appreciate "the innovative contributions that
Iliad has made in the telecommunication industry, along its historical
inclination toward Free Software", they are concerned about the reasons
that may have led Iliad to this philosophical swing.

Free software writers, often voluntarily, make their work available to
all. Using the GPL licence, they enable everyone to use, copy, edit,
and redistribute their free software, provided the authorship is
attributed to them and that source code and modifications, in turn, are
made available to all. Among the writers admonishing Iliad are Harald
Welte, author of iptables (an important element of Linux's core) as
well as Rob Landley and Erik Andersen, authors of BusyBox (utilities
suite for embedded hardware). The judicial proceeding only involves the
work of Harald Welte, who will thus be the only one in court, but these
two pieces of software are delivered with the Freebox and used to make
it work.

In an open letter, the writers state that: "with its increasing
success and recently appointed management, Iliad is forgetting its
initial foundation and namesake."  They fear the refusal is brought about
by the wish to take over an increasing part of home computing through
their box, already enhanced through a multimedia box in its latest
version. This refusal actually differentiates Iliad from its main
competition, as Neuf Cegetel has recently published the entire source
code of their box.

At the same time, a donation campaign has been launched to try and
cover the procedural expenses and lawyers' fees. For the writers, this
is a "real challenge", the necessary sum already amounting to €25.000,
and subject to increase should Iliad not withdraw. 

Contact

Xavier Antoviaque
Campaign's Official Spokesman
+33.6.64.44.65.05
xavier@antoviaque.org

URLs

* Open letter and campaign website: 
http://freebox.flouzo.net/

* Questions-Answers :
http://freebox.flouzo.net/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions

* Appeal for contributions :
http://freebox.flouzo.net/wiki/Contribute 

This is NOT the Iliad who does the "User Friendly" comic strip.  That was confusing, since the
"User Friendly" story was nearby.

I thought the same thing at first.  Then I saw the spelling was different.  Still, gave me
quite a shock.

Yeah. The French one knows how to spell ;} (yes, this *does* annoy me 
whenever I see Illiad's signature on a UF strip. Yes, I *do* lack a life.)

The anal retentivity you are applying to spelling can serve you in good stead when dealing
with niggly technical issues.  In one context it may be seen as obnoxious, while in another
dilligent.  Don't sell yourself short, so long as you know when not to browbeat.

Actually I *was* planning to hire one of the xkcd ninjas to drop in on 
Illiad's bedroom and write LEARN TO SPELL on his bedside table. ;}

But that's entirely reasonable and in no way excessive.

Agreed.   
               

Strange, Iliad is really not the right target. Orange or neuf (the 2 other big IAPs) would
have been better "first" targets since, as far as I perceive it, they are not as free software
friendly than Iliad. Actually it even looks fishy.
I heard some guys from neuf would be involved in this prosecution. Heard too that the release
of their neuf box source code would be fake: you would not be able to have a fully opened
source neuf box providing net/tv/music/movies access.
Moreover, the prosecutor is one of the main ip tables coders, and that's a big message: in
France, high speed internet connections are achieved through IAPs boxes, then they could
become a perfect way to industrialize internet control without the loss of performance "on
authorized internet protocols only". For instance a bittorrent iptable filter remotely and
silently enabled on your box is a piece of cake... and we can even imagine worst case
scenarios (a cam, a microphone etc...). The middle-ground to allow the box to enter the
private home of people and being a mandatory piece of equipment to connect the net seems
unbalanced. Indeed, it would be saner to have a fully opened box.
Another issue arise: rights of TV/Music/Movies distributed through the box seems to be
enforced by code cloaking. Probably user level proprietary software. Ok, everybody knows
that's stupid because it won't forbid some people to get the content some other ways and
distribute it on the net.
And we reach the classic conspiracy theory that Al Capone company would be indirectly behind
all that since Iliad is really the last of the 3 big IAPs  to prosecute... too "free software
friendly" for the Al Capone company...

Actually, that is inexact. Neuf Telecom has this site:
http://www.efixo.com/neufbox4/freesoftware/

Orange ships a box named Livebox, which are manufactured by either Inventel or Sagem. Inventel
went down, but provided sources:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070110074434rn_1/www.invente...

the Sagem Liveboxes run VxWorks, IIRC (but I'm not sure).

Iliad may also be the best target as they're running free.fr, which is the biggest french IAP.

Xavier Antoviaque, the "guy from neuf involved in this prosecution", isn't from Neuf in fact:
http://freebox.flouzo.fr/wiki/FAQ (last question, saying approximately "He isn't employed by
Neuf. He has, however, a role in the Easyneuf.org community, but is independant in this
activity").

>Actually, that is inexact. Neuf Telecom has this site:
>http://www.efixo.com/neufbox4/freesoftware/

http://www.neufbox4.org
On this site it seems that, the neufbox is hacked a lot, even improved. But it's recent, then
I would wait to actually see a neuf box open sourced and working.

>Orange ships a box named Livebox, which are manufactured by either >Inventel or Sagem.
Inventel
>went down, but provided sources:
>http://web.archive.org/web/20070110074434rn_1/www.invente...

Old... I'm sure they got many updates on the box...
I got http://www.liveboxlab.com/html/modules/wiwimod/ but I was not able to get my hands on
source code... and this site is mainly for creating software for the liveboxes... On their
forums, people start to complain that there is no source code to hack their box.

>Iliad may also be the best target as they're running free.fr, which is the >biggest french
IAP.

Hu? It's the second(one brand) or third(all sub-IAPs) behind Orange. Then, the logic would be
to prosecute first Orange.

>Xavier Antoviaque, the "guy from neuf involved in this prosecution", isn't >from Neuf in
fact:
>http://freebox.flouzo.fr/wiki/FAQ (last question, saying approximately "He >isn't employed by
>Neuf. He has, however, a role in the Easyneuf.org community, but is >independant in this
>activity").

Employed or not, it's a matter of belonging to a specific collective. For instance Miguel De
Icaza belongs to the "Al Capone company" collective and is not employed by that company. SCO
become a part of that collective before dying (ready to make sacrifice). Things can be sneaky,
vicious and ugly in this field.


In all this, we are about to miss the setup boxes(TV/Movies) case... indeed, most of the time,
those boxes collaborate closely with the "modem" box for QoS and probably more. And none of
IAPs are providing sources for those setup boxes. But that box type is quite less critical for
internet freedom.

A GPL violation is a GPL violation - the 'right targets' are those who are breaking the GPL,
not those who are considered the bad guys for some other reason...