GPL Violators On The Prowl

ravenII writes "GPL Violations.org are looking after the GPL. Warning letters were personally handed over to companies at their CeBIT booths by Mr. Harald Welte, free software developer and founder of the gpl-violations.org project. It seems big boys like Motorola, Acer, AOpen, Micronet, Buffalo and Trendware seem to violate GPL. Please visit the site for more information on GPL enforcements and violators."

Re:Ooohhh.. Leters!

[tabkey12]

Well, actually if you looked at their site you would find that they have already had considerable success against companies such as Asus [gpl-violations.org] & Sitecom [gpl-violations.org]

Remember kids, read before you post!

Re:Ooohhh.. Leters!

[flumps]

yup.. FTFA:

In this year, the project managed to conclude more than 25 amicable agreements, two preliminary injunctions and one court order.

Seems to be working though.

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

FTFA:

Since more than one year, the gpl-violations.org project tries to bring vendors who use GPL licensed software in their products into license compliance. To achieve this goal, it uses a number of measures, ranging from warning letters over public documentation of GPL violations, up to legal proceedings. In this year, the project managed to conclude more than 25 amicable agreements, two preliminary injunctions and one court order.

Sounds like some folks are paying attention to this guy.

Mirror link

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it looks like GPL violator's website is down, here's a mirror:
http://mirrordot.org/stories/c00f3d2fd6588c34ae25f f3409b0475e/index.html [mirrordot.org]

Re:No teeth

[why-lurk]

If you RTFA, you would see that Harald Welte is a developer and copyright holder of netfilter, which is used in a number of commercial firewall products. He also has license to prosecute the copyrights of some other developers.

So yes, he has standing to both warn and sue the companies he has given notice to (as well as the companies that have settled with gpl-violations.org).

--kirby

Re:Ooohhh.. Leters!

[tabkey12]

BTW, Site is down: So to read the article, check out MirrorDot [mirrordot.org]

Re:How can you enforce a non-contract?

[mikeplokta]

If the violator doesn't accept the GPL, nothing else gives them the right to use the code -- it's not public domain, it's licensed under a specific license. It's not a matter of contract law, it's copyright law, and no contract is required, any more than New Line Cinema needs to have a contract with you to stop you from selling a remixed version of The Fellowship Of The Ring.

Re:GPL too restrictive

[thelexx]

Bullshit. The GPL only prohibits taking open software, closing it and selling it as your own with no source available. You are free to use GPL libraries in your proprietary code without releasing your code, and to sell your closed code. Try again.

RTFA

[soft_guy]

I know this *is* slashdot and all, but according to the article, the group last year reached 25 amicable conclusions, 2 preliminary injunctions, and 1 court order. That would lead most *readers* of the article to conclude that in fact they do take people to court. That is the usual way that you get injunctions and court orders.

Often companies start with warning letters too.

Re:Later that same day

[antiMStroll]

Because the BSA hounds users, not developers. Everyone is free to use GPL'd software.

Copyright does not need a contract

[Anonymous Coward]

If I were to sell copies of Star Trek DVDs that I made myself, Paramount would be all over me for violating their copyright. I have no contract with Paramount. That's the point - I have NO right to sell someone else's copyrighted material without permission. You must have permission to distribute ('publish') someone else's copyrighted material.

That permission could be given by a contract. Or it could be given by a license, such as the GPL. When the author places his work under the GPL, he grants permission to copy to those who adhere to the terms of the GPL. If someone doesn't follow the terms, then they DON'T have permission to distribute the copyrighted materials. It's a simple case of copyright infringement.

The GPL is far simpler than the usual EULA. The GPL makes no restriction on use, but most EULAs do. Most EULAs prohibit copying, but the GPL encourages it. The GPL is a license granting you permissions that you wouldn't otherwise have under copyright law. You don't have to accept the GPL, you just fall back on standard copyright law if you don't. No contract is needed.

Re:Won't last

[Entrope]

A private letter to the party involved is not libel. Remarking on indisputable facts[1] is not libel. Publicly claiming somebody infringes your copyright before you have a court ruling generally is libel, but I see no evidence that GPL-Violations.org does that.

[1]- Examples that are defensible in the US would include "We found strings in Xyzzy Router that almost exactly match strings in our software" or "We believe it is unlikely to produce this machine code without using our code as the source." European law varies, IANAL, get real legal advice if you want to walk close to that line, et al.

Re:How can you enforce a non-contract?

[Anonymous Coward]

...There is no signed contract, hence no agreement. My company and I have looked at open source opportunities before... ... but somehow failed to actually read the GPL? There's a line there that says something very close to "You are not bound by this, since you did not sign it. However, nothing else gives you the right to distribute this code."

And that's it. You start out with no right to redistribute the code. None. Then the creator offers you the GPL as a license, which would allow you to redistribute said code. Those are the conditions. If you stick to them, fine. If not, you're redistributing without permission.

And that's the GPL, and the reason it can't really be tested in court, in the traditional sense. If someone violates the GPL, you charge them with copyright infringement. Now their only defense is to uphold and defend the GPL, otherwise they don't have a license.

Or that's what I understood.

Re:Free != Freedom

[SirTalon42]

"If you create /new/ code, but it depends on a GPL item, then you can release your code under whatever license you see fit - open or closed source."

Thats true /only/ under the LGPL. Only GPL code can link against GPL code. Anything can link against LGPL code, look at WineX (Cedega) and Wine, originally Wine was under the LGPL and WineX added extra closed code to it but then Wine changed their license to GPL and WineX had to fork.

Re:GPL too restrictive

[Kergan]

I must have missed something. I remember reading somewhere in the GPL license that you need to distribute the source code along with the program... I do not recall, however, that the program and its source should be free (as in costless). Nor do I recall that the source code should be readily released to the community.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe are all the following are valid:

- Under the GPL, I can take your code, modify it for my usage, and never release the end result to you or anybody else. Your code is released under the GPL, which sets limits to the way I distribute work based on yours. Not to the way I use it.

- Under the GPL, I can take your code and sell it to my customers, as long as I release your code to my customers. Moreover, I can sell them the upgrades and bug corrections that you release. Sure, some customers will become aware of this and will download your code for free, since it is there to grab. But most won't, because they won't be aware it exists or where to download it in the first place.

- Under the GPL, I can take your code, modify it, and sell it to my customers, as long as I release the resulting code to my customers. Arguably, they must release their source code if they build on top of it and decide to distribute the finished product, since mine and yours are released under the GPL. But they also have the right to never release the work I did to you or to anybody else. And most will, especially if the resulting code is specific to their business processes.

Re:Why isn't KISS sued?

[julie-h]

I don't beleive it. Why settle [mplayerhq.hu] for only $2500? Well, I hope atleast it is $!

Anyway, thanks for the tip.

Harald Welte at FOSDEM

[dolmen.fr]

Harald Welte did a very interesting presentation about GPL Enforcement [fosdem.org] in Germany at FOSDEM [fosdem.org] two weeks ago.

He is one of the few, with Theo de Raadt, who really fight against proprietary software. See this Kerneltrap.org feature about OpenBSD fight against closed source drivers for wireless [kerneltrap.org].

Re:No teeth

[fsmunoz]

When it comes to GPL'd software, who IS the copyright holder? Sure, one person starts the code. But when other people submit patches, improvements, branch the code, etc, etc. . . are they ALL copyright holders? If somebody, for instance, ripped off the Linux kernel, would only Linus Torvalds be eligible to sue, or would every single developer who'd submitted code to it be able to start up a suit?

Yes, they are all the copyright holders, and this makes it more difficult in case of GPL infrigement. This is why as a general rule in GNU projects developers assign the copyright to the FSF, since having only one copyright holder simplifies things.

Re:Not just GPL, but also hardware clones at CeBIT

[micilin]

For the love of pete! iPods support mp3 playback. And wavs. From Apple's site for the Shuffle:

'Audio formats supported: AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV'

And iTunes will convert (undrmed) wmas to something the iPod will play.

Where are people getting this idea that iPods don't support mp3s from?

Re:Why?

[FuzzyDaddy]

you don't have to abide by the terms of the GPL

Actually, you are abiding by the terms of the GPL if you just use it in house. (As opposed to attempting to reverse engineer Windows, which is against the terms of the agreement, even if I do it by myself and don't tell anyone.)

Re:Held accountable? When?

[Animats]

Get an injunction from having the manufacturer's products distributed in the US, and have the products seized by customs when they enter the country.

That's easier than it used to be. The National Intellectual Property Rights coordination Center [ice.gov], a unit of Homeland Security, handles this. There's even an online form. [ice.gov]

Before you can enforce a copyright, you must register it with the Library of Congress. [copyright.gov] This costs $30. So that's step one.

Re:"We could lose all our intellectual property"

[WalksOnDirt]

This probably can't happen. Usually companies are only asked to stop the violation, meaning the penalty is only having to go back and redo the development the way it should have been done in the first place.

Damages are also a slight possibility, but the amount is hard to establish for GPL violations unless they are one of those few dual license cases, where the software is also offered for sale under a commercial license.

I suppose some court in the future COULD impose punitive damages that include loss of a company's copyright, but it seems unlikely, and would probably be reversed on appeal.

IANAL

Shoes on other feets

[Brandybuck]

What about GPL developers who violate the BSD license? Why does the GPL using community tolerate members who violate other licenses? What makes it's okay to violate the copyright and license of non-GPL software? Why does the GPL community tolerate such behavior in its members?

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/g4l.html

Re:How can you enforce a non-contract?

[spitzak]

You can't write such a license, as that would be a contract, because it specifies restrictions that are not required by copyright law.

However you can write a GPL-like license that says "you must chew green gum while *redistributing* this software". Normally redistributing the code would violate copyright laws. However you have now stated that they may violate the copyright, *if* they chew green gum. But you have not said anything about redistributing it without chewing green gum, thus that is illegal because it is still a copyright violation.

However if they just write software using your code they are not violating copyright law. Unless you get them to sign a contract saying they will chew the green gum (in which case they are violating contract law), you have no power over them.

Re:GPL problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to keep a copyright notice that attributes the code to someone else?

No. You need to keep the notice, but it doesn't imply they hold copyright to the full file.

The GPL tells you what you're allowed to do and what your obligations are, it doesn't tell you how to do this in practice. Does the FSF have documentation on this? I haven't seen it.

The FSF requires detailed changelogs for their own projects. See the GNU coding standards [gnu.org] (section 6.8) for more information. You can list all contributors to a file as copyright holders, and people can use the changelog or CVS history if they want details.