Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 18:12 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239)
In reply to: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement by tbird20d
Parent article: Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

How many vendors are you aware of who have been sued for Busybox infringement while compliant with all the other GPLed code they were shipping?

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Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 19:16 UTC (Tue) by tbird20d (subscriber, #1901) [Link] (22 responses)

I have no idea. What's that got to do with my intent?

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 19:29 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (21 responses)

Replacing Busybox with a BSD version only helps if Busybox is the only infringing component. So if you're not trying to protect people who have infringing non-Busybox components, the number of people who are being sued purely for Busybox violations is very relevant.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 19:41 UTC (Tue) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (20 responses)

You can sue over the other stuff based on their copyright holders.

Stop trying to leverage MY code to promote YOUR political agenda. Write your own darn code.

(And complaining about ME writing NEW code because obsoleting my own previous work hurts YOUR agenda is just _sad_.)

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:08 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (19 responses)

Hm, it seems to me that you've leveraged my code for just such purposes.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:15 UTC (Tue) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (18 responses)

Nope, I proved that you didn't have any code left in the project, remember?

http://busybox.net/~landley/forensics.txt

If I'd found any code in the project that was under your copyright, which you objected to shipping GPLv2 only, I would have removed it. That's why I did the search, to remove such code and thus satisfy your objections: there wasn't any.

You also didn't come up with the idea of a "swiss army knife" executable, the first busybox contained gzip/gunzip which already did that upstream (and Red Hat's nash did it too). You never posted on the busybox list once in the 10 years between when Erik Andersen created it and when you started trolling about GPLv3. As far as I can tell, you haven't written any actual code _anywhere_ in 15 years.

Go away, you're not relevant.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:18 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (16 responses)

There is a lot of interesting discussion happening in the comments to this article. I would sure hate to see it get overrun by a Bruce-vs-Rob name-calling session. Your disagreements in this area are well understood, well documented, have not changed in years, and are not really relevant to the subject at hand. Could I ask, please, that they not be rehashed now?

Thanks.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Jan 31, 2012 20:32 UTC (Tue) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

As it happens, multiple lawyers I've discussed this with say he's wrong about my work having been removed from the program. But we can't stop him from perpetuating this.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Jan 31, 2012 23:05 UTC (Tue) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (14 responses)

I'll stop replying to him, but it _is_ relevant that:

A) I stopped working on busybox in the first place because he made doing so intolerable.

B) I started Toybox in part to have a clean untainted environment without any possibility of his claim over it.

C) I never would have considered doing a BSD licensed project if GPLv2 hadn't been undermined by people who made GPLv3 intolerable. (I didn't leave the GPL, it left me.)

I'm working now to fill a market vacuum (mainframe -> minicomputer -> microcomputer -> smartphone, an "android self-hosting project" if you will), but I'm in a _position_ to do so because I was driven out of my old comfort zone by a variant of SCO's old "communicable taint" IP claims making my old project Unclean. What follows is me making the best of the hand I was dealt.

Rob

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 0:22 UTC (Wed) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (13 responses)

> I never would have considered doing a BSD licensed project if GPLv2 hadn't been undermined by people who made GPLv3 intolerable. (I didn't leave the GPL, it left me.)

I'm curious what, in particular, of the GPLv3 and LGPLv3 you object to, in contrast to {L,}GPLv2.

Thanks!

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 1:13 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link] (2 responses)

Sigh. This is a "why haven't you let Jesus into your life" question. If I answer it in public, FSF zealots will jump out of the woodwork and pester me incessantly to recant and confess.

Eh, screw it. I'm taking the "no replying to bruce" thing to mean _all_ FSF zealots, and not replying to them.

Back when GPLv3 came out there was a giant linux kernel thread about this topic, and a position statement:

http://lwn.net/Articles/200422/

But long before GPLv3 shipped, Linus said he wasn't gonna, and to most of us Linux developers GPL was "the linux kernel license". Nobody cared what the FSF said, and some people collected Linus's public statements on that:

http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/gpl.html

Then when GPLv3 happened we all looked over it and went "you're crazy, you know that?" And the FSF went "you'll come around. You have no choice. Bwahahahaha."

I'm pretty sure I participated in that thread at the time, a quick Google finds the tip of an iceberg:
https://lkml.org/lkml/2007/6/14/567
http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0706.1/287...

But there was more. Oh so much more. The FSF zealots WOULD NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT, no matter how many different ways we said "no"...

I've blogged about it too, intermittently over the years:
http://landley.net/notes-2006.html#03-12-2006
http://landley.net/notes-2009.html#02-03-2009

In a nutshell it wasn't needed, is far more complicated, tries to control how the code is USED on the target and not just how it's distributed...

Ok, let's go back to the elephant in the room: the FSF had really bad advocates try to cram it down our throats until we went "death first" and stuck our fingers in our ears until they got bored and went away. (Really, the flamewar on the mailing list lasted MONTHS. If you're wondering why "sue them until they see things our way" and "just wait, they'll come around" don't seem like viable tactics to most of the Linux crowd, it's because we've been on the receiving end of them, and didn't like it.)

We do have actual technical reasons. Specifically in the embedded space, the _easy_ way to comply with GPLv3 ("If you can upgrade it, I must be able to, so give me the root password to the world of warcraft server I have an account on") is to cut the jtag traces on the board and burn your code into ROM, so the vendor can't upgrade it either. Is this really something we want to _encourage_?

GPLv2 had 17 years of analysis when GPLv3 shipped, and nobody ever found anything _wrong_ with it. The busybox suits are still enforcing GPLv2, not v3. The FSF went "I am altering the bargain, pray I don't alter it any further", and the rest of us cried "foul".

We don't trust the FSF, it keeps pulling dirty tricks to try to get its way: http://landley.net/notes-2011.html#15-08-2011

I preferred GPLv2 over GPLv3 for a number of reasons, but I don't want to CONSIDER using GPLv3 because I don't want to get any of the FSF on me. They're crazy, and far more interested in persecuting heretics than heathens.

Rob

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 1:32 UTC (Wed) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]

Interesting, thank you for your reasoning. I don't agree with it by far, especially the evidence you've proffered (e.g. Florian Mueller is an example of FSF deception?), but thank you for providing it. At least I understand your position more.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 18:16 UTC (Wed) by dashesy (guest, #74652) [Link]

Thanks a lot for the links, and all the useful comments. It was fun to read and very informative. I had stumbled upon your website before, just to get Aboriginal Linux, but this time I find it a valuable resource not only for software, but also for the history of computing. And the best part; it is written with the mindset of a programmer who has not turned to the dark side :)

I wish you can always make good money from your programming skills.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 1:38 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (9 responses)

If you are OK with corporations doing whatever they want with your code and never returning anything, you will prefer BSD over GPL.

If you think Tivo-ization is OK, you will prefer GPL2 to GPL3.

If you think running Free Software inside of Google and never providing the source code (because it's never distributed) is OK, you will prefer the GPL class of licenses over the Affero GPL class.

Making free software, for me, was about empowering people, not giving welfare to the world's richest corporations. So, these days I put Affero GPL3 on my software, and I offer a commercial license for $$$ to folks who don't like that.

Some would have you believe that I am crazy or evil or trying to compel people to do something against their will, or some religious zealot.

But I see this as economics rather than politics or religion. I have chosen the economic structure that helps people who want to share most effectively, and lets people who don't want to share pay for the privilege and help to develop more software that is shared.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 1:42 UTC (Wed) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (8 responses)

Thank you for your input.

I'd also be quite interested in finding out what this alleged veto mentioned below thing was all about. :) Preferably with links to the supporting evidence.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 2:01 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (7 responses)

The interesting thing is that after writing that stuff, Best Buy settled with SFC. They accepted those terms they're complaining about.

The whole "veto" thing (that's Best Buy's language, not SFC's) is that if you settle with SFC, they want you to provide them with copies of new products that contain Free Software before you release them, for a period of three years after you settle. You pay them about $5000 per product to audit the product (which is really cheap). If they say it's infringing, you have to fix the infringement before you release the product. If you and SFC can't agree, you can fall back on the court. In practice, the court hasn't been needed, but I have had to help out a customer when SFC was too slow to respond.

Can we stop this sub-thread?

Posted Feb 1, 2012 2:07 UTC (Wed) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (6 responses)

Interesting; thanks for the info. Where's the settlement? If it's settled, I'd assume it's sealed, so why is the PDF of the defendant's side available?

Regarding the "veto" thing (yes, their wording): What is common for proprietary settlements, generally speaking? (Definitely open question to all)

Sealed

Posted Feb 1, 2012 2:22 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (5 responses)

If it's settled, I'd assume it's sealed, so why is the PDF of the defendant's side available?

The parties and the court had not agreed to close the case to public view at that time. They agreed to seal as part of the settlement.

What is common for proprietary settlements, generally speaking?

Very large damage payments.

Sealed

Posted Feb 1, 2012 2:31 UTC (Wed) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link] (1 responses)

> Very large damage payments.

IMHO, this is likely an easier thing for a company than ongoing compliance verification and potential litigation.

Sealed

Posted Feb 1, 2012 3:13 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

IMHO, this is likely an easier thing for a company than ongoing compliance verification and potential litigation.

I am not getting that impression from the companies I work with. They express worse sentiments about their industry partners (one company calls them "frenemies") than they do about us. And you've never seen a truly messed-up work situation for engineers until you've worked in a company that is highly intellectual-property oriented. When they bring me in, I feel more like their therapist than their consultant.

Sealed

Posted Feb 1, 2012 22:11 UTC (Wed) by jiu (guest, #57673) [Link] (2 responses)

And why does SFC not insist on publishing the terms of these settlements? It would make things more straightforward.

Sealed

Posted Feb 2, 2012 1:31 UTC (Thu) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]

Because it's sealed. They're not allowed to. I would guess that it's Best Buy's request, but only the SFC knows for certain, and they probably can't say.

Sealed

Posted Feb 2, 2012 5:16 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Bradley wrote today about what the terms are, in this blog posting. It is unfortunate that most defendants are more willing to settle if the terms are sealed. But you can look at the IRS filings which Bradley linked to from his blog posting, and find out what money there was, and where it went.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 21:24 UTC (Tue) by RiotingPacifist (guest, #68160) [Link]

When did Lines of Code become a good measure of weather or not something is a derived product?

It's a shame Bruce has better things to do because I would love to see your "forensics" stand up in court.

Garrett: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

Posted Jan 31, 2012 19:23 UTC (Tue) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]

From personal knowledge? At least three.

Rob