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GPL Violation - NVIDIA
Ralph Metzler is just another one of those 'thousands of developers' you hear about developing software for Linux. Ralph was checking out the sources for the Linux 2.3 kernel, and he noticed that a chunk of memory conversion routines were copied line for line out of his bttv.c video driver source into NVIDIA's code.
Tony Bennett at NVIDIA grabbed a small amount of bttv.c and integrated it into the Xfree86 driver, without realizing that the code was GPL'ed. Nvidia was contacted about this oversight, and politely responded in a positive way to Ralph. I got to talk to Ralph to see how it all worked out.
Ralph Metzler: I received E-mail by Tony Bennett, and he also said he would fix it and they apologized for any possible infringement or any violations, and it was an oversight and they would remove it as soon as possible.I learned from Rich Black, PR manager for NVIDIA, that they are currently changing the code for the next revision of the Xfree86 driver, and the GPL'ed code will be removed from the driver within the next one to two weeks. I got to talk to him, too.Slashdot: Are you happy with that?
Ralph Metzler: Yes, of course. Of course, it would have been better if it had never happened. I wasn't especially happy about seeing that they released binary-only drivers now, and I just wanted to try them out, and then I see that they re-used GPL'ed code.
Slashdot: ... and then they threw in a credit for someone else who wasn't even you.
Ralph Metzler: All right, I think that was David M[iller] or something. He made some patches to this code, and while he was mentioned in the bttv code before those routines, they probably thought it was all his code, but it was originally mine. He made some patches so it works with newer kernels. They probably thought it was all his original code. It was also probably just a mistake.
Slashdot: The way it stands right now on the Web site, people are able to download [the driver], and it's not GPL'ed.Rich Black: I think it's one of those things where our corporate rule is that we do not open up our code, and we do not have open code, and we will not do that.
Slashdot: That's fine, and that's understandable, but you're in the position that you're either going to have to open it up completely, or not use it at all. Waiting until next revision and then saying, 'Oh, well, it's fixed now' is a bit of a problem, because right now you're in violation.
Rich Black: Right, which we understand, and it will be taken care of within the next one to two weeks. I understand we're in violation of that now, and it was something that was done strictly as a mistake on our part, and somebody was going through writing some code, and it was completely done on accident. It was not a known violation at the time, it was something that he is aware of now, and is seeking to alleviate the situation and take care of it. I guess I can't change anything about how we are in violation of the GPL right now, but it's something we are going to take care of as soon as possible. With the next version of the software, we'll take care of that, and we'll no longer be in violation.
Slashdot: Would you be willing to open source the one kernel module that uses that code?
Rich Black: From what I understand, that is something that might be opened, but I cannot state as 100% fact that I know for sure that that it is the direction, because it is our general rule that none of it is going to be open sourced, but from what I understand is that one [module] might be made available.
So, that's the story. Big company makes a mistake, developer notices mistake and politely informs big company, big company recognizes mistake, apologizes and makes efforts to correct the problem. Wouldn't it be great if it were always this easy? The open nature of the GPL makes 'borrowing' source code extremely easy, and sometimes mistakes do happen. With any luck, polite messages and open communication will save the day.
Lets say your great uncle died and he left you 99.99% of nvidia's stock.
:).
You still couldn't open source the drivers.
Why? Because they signed 5 NDAs for various technologies they went to 3 parties for.
If you are allready aware of the existing NDAs, and still want Nvidia to persue with a full Opensourcing. Then you might be a silly bastard
-------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------- ----------------------------
SAFETY DATA SHEET FOR: GPL SOURCE CODE
-------------------------------------------------
CAS NO.:08392-12-9
NIOSH/RTECS NO.:WK0130000
COMMON SYNONYMS:FREE SOFTWARE, GNU SOFTWARE
PRODUCT CODES:8293,8294
EFFECTIVE: 03/19/87
REVISION #01
LABORATORY PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT
SAFETY GLASSES; LAB COAT
STORAGE
KEEP IN TIGHTLY CLOSED CONTAINER.
DISPOSAL PROCEDURE
DISPOSE IN ACCORDANCE WITH ALL APPLICABLE FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL
ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS.
SPECIAL PRECAUTIONS
KEEP CONTAINER TIGHTLY CLOSED. GPL SOFTWARE MAY REACT VIGOROUSLY WITH SOME
SPECIFIC MATERIALS. AVOID CONTACT WITH ALL MATERIALS UNTIL INVESTIGATION
SHOWS SUBSTANCE IS COMPATIBLE. PROTECT FROM FREEZING.
Flamebait, huh? Sure, kids. Try "argument" or "discourse."
NVIDIA responded quickly, yes, by saying that NVIDIA is _not_ going to fix its GPL violations.
Instead, in 2 to 3 weeks nvidia will remove the GPL'd code from its drivers. That is all.
To fix its violation requires open-sourcing the module code. Keeping closed the gpl-containing module is how nvidia violated the GPL. Opening the gpl-containing module is the only way nvidia can fix that violation.
According to the articles What is NVIDIA doing? and The Case for Fully Free Drivers, nVidia has a history of running source code through an obfuscator before releasing it.
E-mail them about your decision and e-mail the company whose product you do decide to purchase about your decision.
I've mailed Matrox, ATI and a few other companies over the years saying: "I just purchased four of your video cards I explicitly chose your hardware because of the availability of specifications for accelerated drivers for the XFree system and other free graphics system. Thank you for opening your specfications to developers. I will continue to be a loyal customer of your company as long as you continue to do so".
Linux drivers are one thing. Just think of how many BeOS, BSD and Qnix(is that how it's spelt?) users, and good, happy vibrations you'll get by opening up. As opposed to the bad press you'll potentially receive by continuing risking blunders like this.
Also, just as another aside, how does a company mistakenly wind up with GPL code in it's closed product? I'm *not* advocating being extra harsh on NVIDIA here BTW, b/c FWIW they said they'll fix it, but c'mon guys! If the GPL'd package was not clearly marked like it's supposed to be, copying file, license and disclaimer or whatever in the source, would it not be the original authors' blunder? And if everything was in order, how does a developer get ahold of the code and NOT know it was under the GPL? Not trying to open up a can-o-flames here, if anyone has insight as to how _exactly_ things like this happen, please share. GPL developers ought to know so that they can avoid this happening in the future.
Before that, 3DFX ruled as far as speed goes. Now, they rule simply on the higher moral ground that they are standing on.
It'd be nice, but we don't. The moment NVIDIA redistributed without meeting the GPL's terms, they failed to agree to the license, which means it became irrelevant. They're redistributing the author's work without any license; the remedies include desist orders and damages (actual and punitive) but not compulsory relicensing of their work.
IMHO the ideal answer would be to demand they stop offering the driver for download and recall the product (and punitive damages might be fun if they did it deliberately) unless they settle out of court by licensing the rest of the driver source under GPL. We certainly shouldn't give them another dime until they open their products.
So you accusing Be of lying about "how it happened" now?
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
I find it somewhat rye that you use the phrase "we're only catching a few percent of the offenders". Consider who else uses that phrasing;
repressive law makers trying to bring in heavy handed legeslation... sledgehammers for nuts.
I'm personally all for people being discouraged from writing GPL code. I prefer my licenses without the great taste of RMS.
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
You said "Just like every other company that rips off GPL code.". So what version of "every" are you using? One that excludes Be (because you came to an arrangement) but includes Nvidia (even though they seem to have come to an arrangement and we don't even know the actual extent of the violation)....
The sooner the GPL gets into court the better IMO.
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
Okay, according to Alan Cox /dev/sndstat is a deprecated interfaced. He suggested that the developers drop support for it.
/dev/sequencer goes, I had started a thread on the mailing list about that and after enough people seemed to want it (and one guy who suggested an easy way to do it) it was added to an experimental branch of the CVS tree less than 2 weeks later. It works with LiveDrive as well as the gameport
As far as
There are actually 4 drivers available. I did a feature comparison. Funny how the open stuff has more features.....
when the (presumably fully featured) closed source drivers are released, will your average user care about the open source drivers?
IMHO Creative will _never_ make their delivery date (tentatively "summer 00") especially in light of the fact that they intend to port LiveWare as well as supply a driver.
So anybody that _buys_ an SBLive in the meantime will use the vastly superior (today) open driver.
With the rate of progress on the open driver will anybody care about anything except the LiveWare apps by that time?
We just lost a good chance of freeing NVidia's driver. If I understand the GPL correctly, but not respecting it, they have lost ALL of their rights. Meaning that they cannot even use the Linux kernel. This could have been a good chance of forcing them to Free their driver or menace of suing them. They are the only graphic chip maker that hasnt released info or drivers for Free Software devolopers. I dont care about their corporate policies, they have to stop distributing it and try to get all copies back or publish the source code, that's what the GPL says. The Free Software Community is now powerful enough to enforce its ideas on amoral companies. NVidia is amoral, they have corporate policies, but not corporate ethics. We are now strong enough to enforce the GPL in a more violent way. In the past, we were weak and had to hope that no one would challenge the GPL, but now we have the RedHat's of the world and even the IBM's that are betting large sums on Linux and on the GPL. If the GPl is challenged, they will be forced to support us. I ask the author of the bttv driver to take more expeditive actions against Nvidia and not let them get away with it. Those situations have to stop. I dont even believe them when they say that they didnt knew that stuff in the Linux kernel was GPLed, this is just completely ridiculous. How could they not know it? They did it and they knew what they where doing and they hoped that they would not get caught, how much more have they stolen from the community? They have to be stopped now. We have to tell them that we will not allow them to release buggy proprietary drivers and then even use GPLed code in it. If someone had used their copyrighted code, they would have started suing like mad. Why can't we do something similar? We have waited to much. There is a time for peace and there is a time for action. The time for action has come!
I think replies to this comment properly belong under the RMS interview. I doubt I can put it any better than he does.
However, unless we are copyright holders for infringed code, it is our strongest weapon. If nVidia really is a proper corporation acting in their stockholders' best interests, then that weapon will be effective if applied in sufficient measure. I don't think they're willing to lose 50% of their business. What about 20%? 10%? 1%? In a boycott, time will tell whether enough people are participating. It depends on the margins, the market shares, and the amounts of money involved.
Another, more interesting, idea might be to boycott all of nVidia's business partners and stockholders. A meta-boycott, as it were. Nothing like a kick in the ass from an important business partner.
perhaps the fsf could hire a lawyer to sue nvidia for copyright violation and with ralphs permission the settlement money would go to the fsf to fund further open source development.
There's a big reason this shouldn't be done; do it once for a company that makes an honest mistake, and a lot of companies will simply stop writing Linux drivers. Writing the drivers probably isn't a big enough money-maker to balance out the cost of possible lawsuits if we get sue-happy.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Copyrights must be defended if they are to remain enforceable.
No they don't, that only applies to trademarks. Moreover, as copyright owner, you can negotiate whatever settlement you wish, including giving the violator time to correct the violation.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
>Very nice thread we have here. It will scare off every company that
>ever considered using GPLed code.
So the Windows Cripple/ShareWare crowd won't be willing to use GPLed code. No great loss here if you ask me.
On the contrary! Unless the author explicitly assigns the copyright to another entity (corporeal or legal), the author possesses the copyright regardless of what license she may place on her code. If I recall correctly, the FSF recommends that authors assign their copyrights to the FSF so that the FSF can more effectively fight license violations in court, and so that they can (if need be) easily ammend the license terms of GNU software (e.g. updates to the GPL).
Frankly, your statement is ridiculous---merely placing code under the BSD license doesn't automatically assign copyrights to the Regents of the University of California, does it? I can understand some objecting to the GPL---it trades certain kinds of freedom (the freedom to do whatever you want with the code) for certain kinds of protection (protect the user's license to modify and redistribute the code), and not everyone is going to share this ethic---but this ill-informed sniping should be beneath most mature hackers, even those of us who are most passionate in our advocacy.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
Its not like its an operating system or some really new fancy firewall.. its a driver.. a driver that makes their hardware product more accessable to more people. Why not open source it? I own one of these cards... a RIVA TNT... It works fine for X and console of course... but can I play Unreal with it? Nooooo... It frusterates the hell out of me that I have to boot into windows for this.. (an OS that won't recognize my CDROM or my 2nd HD without a Dos driver... go figure that one... Oh well.. I'm no software/hardware developer.. who am I to say what the public needs. Regarding them fixing the mistake they made.. Kudo's... it could be fixed a little sooner if you ask me, but good for them anyway.
- Xabbu
- Jimbob
I'm not sure how you can ethically separate the legal from the moral. I don't know of many laws that don't advance some moral viewpoint, even if those I don't agree with.
I can understand the moral value that free software must remain free, and the moral value that intellectual property is a bad thing. However, the very notion of the GPL is that, "Because I believe in the freedom of software, I will exercise MY copyright in its defense by releasing the software as GPL."
By invoking the GPL, you implicitly support intellectual property, _even_ if the motive is to spread the property over many intellects.
You can't separate the legal concept of copyright and intellectual property from the moral concept, no matter how hard you try. Indeed, as originally conceived, the IP laws in this country were designed to _encourage_ the sharing of ideas while also providing some short-lived protection on them, after which they become public domain. That it has been corrupted over time, I agree.
There is a contradiction in the values of the FSF and the legal implications of the GPL. Only by enforcing and accepting intellectual property rights can the FSF protect the copyleft - which purports to thwart such things.
I'm sure the FSF is aware of the contradiction and considers it acceptable in light of its purpose. But understand that the FSF is also amassing considerable IP given the amount of code assigned to it.
The same law that protects your enemies protects you.
Yes. He has _dictated_ that democracy will be the rule.
... you may dislike the concept of IP very much, but by making use of IP to further your end of destroying IP, you reach an ethical dilemna because you validate the concept by making use of it!
On the other hand, he has also dictated that nobody will be able to dictate after he leaves. It's the same sort of contradiction that exists in the GPL - You support the opposite of IP by invoking IP. You can't do that without getting involved with the existing system.
I don't think I explained myself fully regarding the term 'support.'
... Stallman; it's his license and he decides what restitution its violators should make
Utter Bollocks!
It is the author of the code that has rights under copyright, not the author of the Licence that the copyright holder chooses to use for their work.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
I think you are correct.
As I see it, they have a choice. Either publish the full source of the driver under the GPL, or pay the copyright holder for violating the copyright.
If they opt for the GPL route, great.
If not, they need to be sued. Presumably, proving the case will not be too dificult, since they've already admitted the violation.
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way
Now this is getting strange. I this story is true, then Nvidia is at the moment distributing GPL'd code without source. If they at least removed the code from their site when they realized they were in violation of GPL, then this could be delt with as an honest mistake (at least if the developer in question agrees with it). But now, Nvidia is chalenging the GPL license. That has to stop.
/jarek
Wow, sorry for not being a troll. Emmett's been talking about the story for a while in #slashdot on OPN. I already knew most of the story, it only took a glance to get the missing details. Sorry if I felt like congratulationg emmett on good journalism and for taking away a trolls chance to first post.
Crap! And here I thought I had a decent sense of humor. Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be a bot. :)
Lack of resources isn't why you can't sue them.
You have no *standing* to sue; you don't own the code.
Could all the zealots go home now? RMS can get along fine by himself.
Cheers,
-- jra
-----
The GeForce 256 (and it's successor) was on my list of cards to consider when looking for a new video card. No longer. NVidia has made it plain that they will never release source for their driver, and I'm making it plain that they will never have my business. It's simple. For any device as complex as a 3D accelerated video card, I will not be held hostage by the schedules of a company who doesn't consider me, a customer, a priority.
I encourage everyone who feels this way to write directly to NVidia and tell them.
GStreamer - The only way to stream!
Rich Black: I think it's one of those things where our corporate rule is that we do not open up our code, and we do not have open code, and we will not do that
Well this means I'll never buy any NVidia products.
Let's see.
Scenario 1: ATI has open specs for their chips.
Result: John Carmack, author of all 3 Quake games, is optimizing drivers for their chips.
Scenario 2: NVIDIA is dead-set on closed source.
Result: I can't get their piece-of-crap drivers to work in 3D, I don't know why, and they don't offer support. This does not lead to customer satisfaction.
There is no conflict between owning something and sharing it freely. That's exactly what the GPL allows: the original author owns the copyright to the code and has licensed its use freely and permanently.
rm
Hardware companies have no business touching Linux anyway. Open the specs and let the Linux community develop the drivers. There is no way that can get them in legal trouble.
Allowing non-GPL kernel modules in the first place was a mistake. Fortunately it is very hard to develop a kernel module without using GPL'd code.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
it's all well and good that the two groups came to a peaceful friendly solution, however, these solutions to GPL violations are setting a very bad precedent - they are saying that in a confrontation between proprietary code and GPL'd code, the GPL'd code loses, at least for a while.
Think about if the situation were reversed - and a GPL'd project appropriated some proprietary binaries from a commercial product. "Sure, we'll take it off our web site in a couple weeks." Yeah right! Can we say 'letter from the lawyers' faster than you can blink?
There needs to be some sort of penance for these companies stealing code. I'm not saying we should go out and attack - I'm saying that if they screwed up, fine, they screwed up - they should give us something in return as part of the apology.
Nice point!
:)
The driver released uses GPL'ed code, therefore the source should be released
---
I speak not of those who can muster a civil dialog when put to the test, or of those to who it comes naturally, but the average ./er (or more correctly AC), who right now sits protected from the realities of life and has not yet even been faced with having to support themselves.
They have not been forced to test themselves to see which path they will choose, but stand miles from the gate and screem at the top of their lungs which is the right road.
"What do I care, if life ain't fair,
If you look at me real sore.
I've paid my dues and you should too,
as a son-of-a-bitch to the core"
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
Everything is GPL seems to be the motto of some /.ers.
In 5 years when they have to put food on the table for there 6 mildly retarted kids and strung out wife while trying to find a way to run a T1 line into the trailer park, they'll take a part-time job writing closed-source encryption apps for the local drug dealer to make ends meet.
And it will _all_ be GPL code. You bet it will.
"What do I care, if life ain't fair,
If you look at me real sore.
I've paid my dues and you should too,
as a son-of-a-bitch to the core"
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
sounds good on paper (...er, screen...), don't it? in all reality though, it'll never happen. why don't we do the same with all telephone conversations and maybe even email (...oh wait, got *that* one covered...)? keeping such logs would be a HUGE waste^H^H^H^H^Hutilization of resources (human and financial). if i follow you correctly, these logs have the express purpose of ensuring companies don't copy GPL'd code? and there would be some sort of mandate to offer up these logs every time some company feels "hey--that sorta looks like what we did..."? i dunno. sounds sorta far fetched and impractical to say the very least.
Huh? We are? How so? I don't see us doing anything at all!
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Hehe. Nice troll. I like the way you did "GPL'ed" like it doesn't actually "exist".
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
So, in other words, just because people are being assholes, we should be assholes too to reciprocate? I don't buy that. I DO think that there needs to be more incentive not to violate and so forth, and I even agree that perhaps people should look into being more forceful about GPL violations, but I do NOT think that being angry and making it "painful" just out of retribution is the way to go.
A couple of functions that convert memory address, for example from user virtual address to physical address. They're actually code that probably belongs in the kernel proper, and that many OSS drivers end up reproducing anyways. (~100 lines of pretty straight-forward code).
compare the nv.c file included with the drivers with any version of bttv.c
There is 0 chance that your Alpha, PPC, or Sparc machine will even POST with an Nvidia card installed. The firmware only supports the PC BIOS.
So the hardware support is a non-issue. Go buy something else with driver that meet your criteria (and if you are a non-x86 user, you already are).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I know that for Macs at least, a video card needs to identify itself to OpenFirmware to be used. Sparcs are probably the same story.
(I amend my previous statement because some/all Alphas have an 8086 emulator to initialize x86 hardware.)
Anyway, you can't use any ol PC PCI card in your non-x86. Some ATI cards contain the OF boot code for example, and some do not (and are x86 only).
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Well, if you ask me to go where the money is would be to release the driver code source. I intentionally decided NOT to get an Nvidia video card when I ordered my computer last week. Why? Simply because the linux support was so poor. Either companies wake up and release their source or they lose business. At least from me.
I was at NVIDIA a week and a half ago, and I talked to them about linux drivers. Please be patient with them, it'll turn out good in the end. Direct quotes from Tony Tamasi: (link) I know many of you will probably just flame me, but I have a good relationship with many of these people - they're good people and they'll live up to their promises.
And don't forget the important part - they are supporting Linux.
No adverse effects. Just another proof that GPL is not free. Its closed proprietary license that forces certain restrictive rules on the user - just another variation on the old true theme.
So where is that revolutionary concept everybody is talking about ?
Ever been to www.windows95.com.
At least 50% of software available there is in more advanced ( read usable) state that stuff you get on slashdot.
This is the way to handle occurances of this type which will happen more and more as GPL'ed code becomes more and more ubiquitous. My company is looking to use some GPL'ed tools in further development and I have found that there is alot of misunderstanding about GPL'ed code and tools. Hope everyone can learn from from this and other Really Big Companies can follow the example set by NVidia. Of course, this is assuming that they are as good as their word.
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself
-Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye
Would it be too difficult to have a thrid-party group check code? I submit that we could put a group of code reviewers in place that would sign NDA's with companies that develop closed source apps (ones that are suspected of containing GPL'd code). This group wouldn't need to be code gurus or even GNUGeeks. The group could offer their services to any closed-soruce group. Once the code is checked everyone's happy. If the company won't allow the code to be checked, then would there be a legal recourse? Thoughts?
Get a life, not a lifestyle. - Hikem Bey
It's good to see that this situation was handled well. There's a tendancy in our community (hey, I'm guilty of it too) to see something like this happen, and automatically start screaming "the evil corporation is out to screw us!" without taking into account the fact that yes, people do make mistakes. Hopefully in the future we'll see more thoughtful polite confrontation and fewer knee-jerk harsh reactions.
3dfx is the 80x86 & nvidia is the mac.
Huh, what has the Macintosh to do with Nvidea?
A least Apple open up it's designs some years ago.
And Apple is using of the shelf part nowadays.
So, don't compare Apple with a company which doesn't open up it's design.
Mvgr,
Anson
Type "info gcc" and look at all those options. most of those change the way gcc generates machine code given a certain chunk of source.
And that is just one compiler, there are many. There is a reason that C decompilers are rare and don't work well.
Quite correct, there are other licenses. But if it was BSD code, they would still have to display the "this product contains code from the Regents" etc, message (sorry, I can't remember it off hand). You see my point? No matter what license (bar public domain, and possibly some others) they would have had to do something, or at least think about the implications of using the code in their product. But it seems they didn't bother to do that. Like they didn't care what the license was (since I can't believe that they thought it was in-house code they were using).
Mozilla isn't GPL'd. Mozilla has its own license.
I would have thought the answer was obvious. "Open source all your drivers or we'll sue your a**".
Maybe it hasn't been testing *because* it is bullet proof. Would you sue if you know you're going to lose?
As for the issue of legal costs, well a threat at least is free, and there are *some* squillionairs who could put up the dough if they cared) to (like Eric Raymond who has let companies off scott free in the past).
As I view it it's not an excersize in "doublethink".
The GPL is not about restricting you to do what you want with my code. It's about protecting the 3rd person that may want to alter upon your changes. I have no problems with you altering or redistrubuting my work, as long as you make it possible for someone else to do the same with your altered version.
Copyright OTOH is for keeping you from altering or redistributing my work in the first place. (Which as we've seen in RL can be quite tough.)
A GPL'd piece of music would be sold with a complete set of notes/lyrics and whatever is needed to "compile" the song. I could then change some parts, perhaps by adding a drum, and then distributing it again. Remixes and the like are a RL example of this practice. (Although I have no idea in what legal way those are made.)
Is it possible to have FSF be a joint owner of the code, or must it be totally signed over?
Hmm, 2:00 am. Guess I'll probably find out myself before there is a reply:)
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
They are laughing at the GPL, and others will follow. When violations are discovered, nothing is done about it; how will this discourage other companies from making future violations themselves?
If you ripped off the company in question, do you think that they'd give you a few weeks to get your shit together? Do you think that you'd get away with a little apology? I don't think so - they'd come after you, and hard.
Supporters of the GPL should not sit back for a couple of weeks and let this slide. Open up your eyes...
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
With the BSDL developers are more free to do what they want with my code. If they want to keep their modifications open, that is fine. If they don't, it really doesn't matter either. I write code because I like doing it and I want end users to have the best experience possible. If this means my code will end up in Windows (TM) or some other widely used closed source alternative then all the better.
I can see how you can think that way, if you don't care about that project. So, you don't care if someone takes it, make it propriatory, improves it , and so kill your project. If you don't use it at all, and don't care about those improvements, etc. that BSDL is the licence to go with.
On the other hand, when I write free code, I do it because I use it and need it and care about it. It's something I created and which has grown to my heart. I don't won't to be cut from it by some ethicless corproration tearing it away and not giving me nothing. I use it, and if anybody improves it, and that improvement is useful to me, I want it. I've given it for free use for everyone in good faith, but if someone makes it better, I would like a courtasy returned. So I chose GPL.
Those are valid reasons for both licenses, it's all about how you feel about your project.
I'm not getting paid either way so why try to restrict people from making money of my software. After all, Redhat has proved that it is possible to get rich off other people's code even if it is GPLed.
GPL does not have any restrictions about someone making money on your code. On the contrary, it is encoruged.
It's only restriction is that nobody can take away that freedom from ther customers (or whatever).
Do you really think your flame will change anything, other than lowering my opinion of you?
:). Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I think scores should go up to 10 (with 4x the moders) so I annoy people until Rob changes it. There's more than 6 levels of comments here. Oh, and I average about 20 hits a post, so you do the figgurin'. :-)
No, my bad. shoulda done it as AC, I still think it was a troll. I sacrifice Karma from time to time to shut 'em up (and the other idiots who reply to them
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+&x
There is no conflict. The license restrictions put on copyrighted things like music take away the end user's rights. The GPL, on the other hand, is all about giving the end user rights. The only restrictions in the GPL (like those which nVidia violated) exist to prevent someone from taking away the rights that the GPL gives you (ie - taking some GPL'd code and using it in closed-sourced software). Those who violate the GPL are trying to cage the IP back up. Those who pirate music (and other things) are setting it free (even if it is against the author's wishes).
That's not what happened here. What happened is that he was looking through the source code for the kernel module (which they released the source code for) and saw his code. The only violation is that it's not GPL-ed.
No, I think as a matter of law nVidia is required to either stop distributing the driver in question or release the code. They can easily stop distributing, rewrite the code in half an hour and then rerelease it. The only recourse the copyright holder would have is to sue for damages and punative damages. What do you want to bet that the damages are $0 and punative damages would be $0.
Yeah, "full of stolen GPL code." First off you can't "steal" GPL code. Second it's not hidden away in their binary only driver, it's in the kernel module that they released the source code to. Anybody who wants the source can get it. The only thing is that it doesn't say "GPL" in the copyright.
No, nVidia can fix their violation by stopping distribution of their driver. That's all they need to do. What's more is that they could fix it without having to rewrite the code anyway. They could just write a script in their makefile that would extract the relevant bits out of the code that is already in the kernel. Or even better, modularize the code in question and contribute it back to Linus for inclusion in the kernel. That there isn't duplication of the module for each driver that needs the support.
I'm a little confused here ... if Nvidia is releasing a binary-only kernel module with no source code, then how did Ralph Metzer discover that they were using his code?
Y.
The conflict that the original poster pointed out was that proponents of the GPL are often the first to violate other non-GPL licenses. The same people who hold the GPL so dear, attack others for choosing a different license for their property. You need an example? GPL'ed Napster clients. IP protected under one license whose sole purpose violates other IP copyrights.
It seems to me even RMS has a disdain for the copyright laws which allow him to force me to release modifications to his GPL'ed code. Some comments from his Slashdot interview:
Metallica recorded some music and wants to have a say in how it is distributed. Would someone please explain to me how this is fundamentally different from RMS writing some software and wanting to control how it is distributed? Talk about "hypocritical absurdity!"
If you wish to give a moral argument, as opposed to a legal one, please be very specific about what legal changes you would make to make the laws fit your moralism. Any legal system that I can imagine that would support the GPL without supporting artists like Metallica seems much more tyrannical than what we currently have. But maybe I just lack imagination... convince me.
That said, let me close by saying that I am not opposed to the GPL. I support the rights of IP owners regardless of what license they use when distributing it. I am just disturbed by how blind some of its proponents are to their own hypocrisy.
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Probably not. Many of the biggest defenders of the GPL are students or academics. In other words: people who've never had to notice a direct connection between their coding and their income.
I suspect that much of this zealotry is caused by insufficient experience with the real world. That's probably true of most zealotry, though.
--
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
Will their changes to replace the functionality which is currently performed by the GPLed code be done in a 'clean room' manner? I.e. will the person rewriting the code have access to the original code, in which case there is still potential for some sort of violation (although exactly what I can't be sure).
MrCreosote Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump!Meow!Thump! "You're right! There isn't enough room to swing a cat in here!"
Sure,
If you mean `on the short term', the BSD license is easier for corps. They can just grab what they want, stuff it in their product and sell sell sell. But by doing that they miss out on one of the major benefits of free software, the `free support' that often comes with it. By keeping their software closed, they *will* fall behind other companies who opened their stuff to the world. If the closed-source-corp has some piece of whiz-bang hardware which runs circles around the competition, they will probably succeed anyway since the benefits of the superior hardware offset the drawbacks of the less reliable driver support for many buyers. If, however, the hardware is on par with that offered by the competition, they'd better make sure their software staff keeps up with everything out there and fixes bugs faster than you can spot them, or they will lose.
I chose a Matrox card for this reason. Not because it Quakes better or worse than nVidia (I have no idea if it does, I'm not a Quaker). but because I know I can get it running on my box no matter which OS or kernel I run. Same thing for the other cards in there.
--frank[at]unternet.org
The thing I can't figure out is why they don't open source their drivers? What do they feel they have to lose?
With some software packages, I can understand not wanting to OS it, because all their development work went into it. But you'd think all nVidia really cares about is selling chips.
I know big business has an inherent fear of OS, but you'd think they have someone with a brain that could come to the follow conclusions:
- If we do not open source the drivers, *some* people will be pissed off
- If we DO open source the drivers, NO ONE will be pissed off.
Its a pretty obvious conclusion from there....
Guess I'll have to open-source my latest work... I copied the following from a GPL'd program:
#include
int main(void)
{
int rc;
/* my stuff here */
return rc;
}
Ok, just kidding around (these are basic constructs, after all), but there's gotta be some reasonable limit on this. I suppose an argument like that would suggest that the GPL is somewhat weak - well, if *he* can take 2% without problem and they could take 6% of the program without problem, I can 10%... and so on...
You need to be either absolute or you'll get nit-picked...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
The text of the GPL is directed at the person who received a copy of the software under that license. It is NOT directed at the copyright holder!!
The copyright holder is responsible for enforcing compliance.
In this case, that is Ralph, but also David Miller and possibly a few more people.
The one thing that most here have forgotten... and what the GPL license forgets... or does not protect is the same fault that patents have....
Is that case law has proven that unless you are an operating company and in current (key word current) direct competition with said infringing company then you can only sue for damages... but since in the GPL'd world you are typically not a company then you have no damages and thus the only way you can prove damages is based upon the infringing companys revenue... so you only have an oppurtunity to leverage your intelecutual property if they are infringing for a significat duration or the infringment is large enough to be a basis for their core business.
Bull there's no support. The day after these new drivers were released I had a problem with a crash, emailed Nvidia, and got a response with a fix that worked in less than 24hrs. I found a separate bug in the beta drivers and alerted them and got a response in a few hours.
Not to mention they opened a channel on irc.openprojects.net, #nvidia devoted SOLELY to support these new drivers and help people get them installed.
Perhaps they weren't too supportive in the past, but I'm very impressed now with how they are handling these new drivers.
The previous post seems like a perfectly valid question to me.
I can't possibly claim to answer it for anyone else, but for myself I feel this way:
If "they" will drop the copyright nonsense, "I" will gladly forget about copyleft.
In other words if they open source the world, there won't be any need for the GPL to make sure that works stay open. I'm not being facetious here. Just pointing out that to me the GPL is purely defensive. If the people trying to hoard knowledge would just knock it off there wouldn't be any need for the GPL.
"Hey... don't be mean." --Buckaroo Banzai
Or worse, as the case may be.
Unless and until Ralph Metzler chooses to pursue further action, the rest of us need to shut the hell up about it. GPL software is not "owned" by the whole community in this context. If Ralph is content to let nVidia fix it on the next release, then he is free to do that, and we are bound to respect that.
Much as I'd like to see OSS drivers for my Riva TNT card, this is not the way to do it. Ralph could certainly try to demand all sorts of concessions, but it would almost definitely end up in court.
Right...
So, by that argument, if a dictator rules that democracy is to take root in his country, then he's implicitly supporting his right to dictate?
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
This is my personal view, but I consider both copyright and the GPL to be equally valid and equally deserving of respect. The conflict is when someone respects one and not the other.
I'm rather puzzled by this point you and others are making. As I understand it, the GPL only exists because copyright exists, and without the existence of copyright there would be no need for "copyleft".
This seems doubtful to me. First of all, if the goal were simply to release free software without limitations on copying, it could simply be released as public domain, or without restrictions on duplication, alteration, or use. The existence of copyright doesn't prevent the dissemination of uncopyrighted material, otherwise there wouldn't be so many people publishing the King James Bible, as a perfect example of a work that has genuinely no license and no restrictions on distribution or alteration. So, I honestly can't see any legal requirement for the GPL.
No, the real purpose of the GPL is to enforce conditions on someone who distributes GPLed work, in order to encourage the ethic of opened, free source. The very premise that someone can set conditions that others must abide by with regards to something they create is the heart of intellectual property. It doesn't matter whether the conditions are "pay me if you make a copy" or "always include the current source with the copy", they're conditions.
Simply discarding the idea of intellectual property does not serve the purposes of the FSF. If anything, it sabotages them. Without any way to enforce the distribution of source, there's nothing to stop malicious versions of what happened with Nvidia. Entire proprietary operating systems could be based on GNU work, since the GPL would have no force. Further, without some sort of intellectual property system, corporations will lock up their code even more tightly, because the enhanced copy-prevention systems they'd have to put into software (since they'd have a greater number of people trying to crack them) would be difficult to implement if anyone outside the company can see the code.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to consider this answer unsatisfactory. The GPL isn't just an "anti-copyright" designed to remove the "immoral" restrictions on copying and use - there's no need to create a license to stop that in the current system. The GPL is a very different system from copyright, relying on the same moral principle of intellectual property that copyright does.
A terribly misinterpretive posting.
First of all, you assume a standard "murder and self-defense are distinct, elemental acts" moral stance. Quite unreasonable. Many genuinely non-violent people consider killing even in self-defense to be murder and morally impermissable, because the ending of life is, in their view, simply wrong, no matter the convenient justification given. This would appear to be most properly anagolous to the view that "Intellectual property and placing demands on people who make copies of your works are wrong". If one genuinely holds that view, instead of giving oneself the convenient out of "Oh, but forcing people to include the source is OK", one must discard the "GPL exception" - just as someone who is genuinely non-violent (as opposed to merely non-aggressive) discards the "self-defense exception".
By way of incidental explanation, I hold that self-defense is moral while murder is not, but I hold that killing is a morally neutral act considered outside of context. In the context of terminating another innocent person's life against his or her wishes, the killing is murder. In the context of ending the life of someone who has show no regard for my moral right to not be murdered, self-defense is moral because that person has removed him/herself from a moral context by committing aggression. This loses applicability when you're talking about copyright and GPL because neither is an aggression - you can choose whether you want to interact with copyrighted or copylefted material.
Neither can I, really. I'm pleasantly surprised.
Any restriction on what you can do with a program or work you possess removes certain freedoms of action. Copyright prevents me from making copies for free, if I abide by it. Copyleft prevents me from making copies without including accurate source, if I abide by it. My freedom to distribute works with either sets of conditions placed upon them is not absolute, regardless of what freedoms that gives to others. If one claims that intellectual property is an unreasonable concept, one has to consider all conditions any license imposes as equally unreasonable.
In that ethical view, the GPL is just as meaningless and ignorable as copyright. Therefore, for the GPL to exist and promote the open-source ethic, intellectual property must exist.
A mistaken assumption. It's simple to posit a program that regularly opens up an encrypted network connection and checks in with a central server to make sure it's on the same system as its internal serial number says it should be on. If that check fails, it erases itself. And that's just assuming companies don't take this to the ultimate logical conclusion and abandon distributing software entirely, in favor of renting access to application servers. Simply removing intellectual property rights doesn't magically open up source.
And as for reverse-engineering, if the workings of a program are sufficiently obfuscated, "reverse-engineering" becomes pretty much "building your own competing program from scratch".
But that pressure cannot be exerted without the premise of intellectual property.
Yes, it bothers me too.
There is a Romanian saying: "The locks are for honest people, not for burglars."
The corporations might be staling from us and we might not be able to stop them... However we can still build our free [software] world.
Yes, but the costs of losing a lawsuit are so high it wouldn't surprise me if they opened the source to settle.
Wrong again.
nVidia violated the GPL, but all that means is that they no longer have any right to use the GPL'd software. Read the termination clause of the GPL.
What could happen is that the owner of the GPL'd software in question could sue them or negotiate a settlement; the latter could include nVidia's opening the sources.
No, this is copyright we're talking about here. The corporations have already lobbied congress to make sure that copyright violations carry a hefty penalty.
We have all the stick we need. We can hit them where it hurts -- in the bottom line.
What would be interesting would be if the FSF put a reward for finding a GPL violation in their software by a big company.
According to the copyright law, you can substitute your actual damages ($0) for statutory damages of $750-$20000 per copy.
Actually, I would tend to disagree. The GPL is a user's license; it gives much more power to the user than to the developer.
People say that the BSD license is a capitalist's license, but I have to say that the true capitalist's license is the Microsoft EULA.
IANAL, but wouldn't the argument be that the closed code that incorporated the GPL'd code continues to be closed? Even if they change it in a new release of code, the closed code violates, and continues to violate, the GPL... at least until that source code ir released?
It seems to me that the only way for them to stop violating the GPL is to release the source code which violated the GPL. It doesn't really matter that they change some other piece of code that doesn't violate the GPL. Once the code contains GPL'd code, they're stuck with that license.
And it shouldn't matter that they didn't fully read or understand the license which they were implicitly agreeing to when they downloaded the code, either. Certainly, I'll be held accountable for licenses that I don't fully read, but open anyway. Won't I?
Someone help me on this one. Am I missing something?
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I am not a GPL zealot, but I do admire those who contribute and I hope for the sucess of Open Source. I support the effort by assisting anyone who asks with the limited knowledge I possess.
I would gladly contribute to a GPL legal defense fund that could be used to encourage nVidia and others to act a bit more swiftly. I would also choose vendors that contribute a portion of their profit to the legal defense fund.
I certainly don't score this one a win. This is sort of like my building a fence on your property and telling you that I will fix it at my convenience.
One other suggestion might be an nVidia boycott equalling the time that they had the violating drivers available. These folks are not altruistic. In the end they do what maximizes profits. My guess is that their demographic studies show that Linux is an expanding market with good customer loyalty.
Cheers.
I would predict that NVidia is probably going to get some form of contract with Mr. Metzler granting them a license for a short time, and then replace it. No more violation then.
treke
Let's see if the GPL has teeth.
yes, let's see indeed! i see you GPL'ers chomping at the bit to sue some corporation. last time it was when mr. perens had a few library mods used by the folks at Be. what you don't understand is that while you might be technically right about your license being violated, the circumstances are so mitigating for the corp. (nvidia in this case) that you would never win.
the only way anyone's going to win with GPL is to have a well-documented case of somebody releasing offending code after having been warned *far* in advance. GPL is, by some accounts, utterly unenforceable, so someone had best pick a much better case than this to sue over, lest one finds out that it is.
cheers,
sh_
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
That would be A86. I thought it was a pretty clever idea too.
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
And you, sir, are a flamer. What's the use of posting a flame at +2? Do you really think your flame needs that extra
point? Do you really think your flame will change anything, other than lowering my opinion of you?
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END OF LINE
We do. And they don't. And don't. And don't. And don't. And don't. And don't.
I guess this will surprise IBM (JFS), SGI (XFS), and SCO (cscope). Many more companies have donated code to different projects. Some do contribute and some don't. Stop whining about it.
Dude, you'd be giving up the *GeForce 2*! Offering that card *is* serious respect for the customers.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
"On their timetable it would seem."
To which the author of the original code agreed... Frankly, this is b/w him and nVidia, not you. If you don't like their practices, don't use their cards, but please stop bitching about it.
Adam
"Sometime soon, the kernel people really should say, 'As of version x.y.z, no more binary-only kernel modules will be permitted.' It's not like linux needs binary-only kernel modules any more. "
At which point I'll stop using Linux... I don't need some linux developer deciding what I can and can't use with the kernel. Thanks but no thanks.
Adam
"You are right, the whole community has not been harmed by this; just those with nVidia cards."
Please explain how I've been harmed...
Adam
"No, the plaintiff must be an interested party. The law is, on that at least, quite clear."
Good, then please stop bitching about it... The author and nVidia have come to an agreement which, frankly, doesn't involve you.
Adam
I never said I didn't care. I just asked someone to show me how I, an average nVidia customer, was harmed by this mistake. I don't think I was. Sure, Ralph was... But I wasn't!
Yes, it pisses me off that they used his code. However, Ralph and nVidia have come to an agreement, have they not? Ralph decided to act like an adult, not a raving lunatic like most people on this board.
As for your Microsoft analogy... Neither of the players in this situation were Microsoft... Neither of the players are even remotely as powerful as Microsoft. So your comparison isn't even remotely valid.
Go get a life.
Adam
This is between Ralph Metzler and nVidia. They have come to an agreement. They have decided on a course of action. If Mr. Metzler isn't happy with the outcome, it's his responsibility to take legal action. Everyone else should just mind their own business.
Adam
"What nvidia needs to do is release the source of the module into which they incorporated the GPL'd code. That is the only solution.
In order to edge nvidia in the right direction, should they continue to indicate they are not going to follow the GPL (Rich Black has pretty much said in corporate-speak, we will not be releasing any code ever -- that's what 'might' means in the context he uses it), the fsf can let nvidia know that ALL violation of the GPL which do not become fixed are prosecuted.
It truly sounds as though nvidia is _not_ going to fix its GPL violation (no source code release). Instead nvidia appears to want to sweep the incident under the rug and merely remove the gpl code in the next release.
Sorry, nvidia, that's not good enough."
Unless you are the author of the code in question you have no tort against nvidia and therefor no standing to sue (This includes the almighty fsf). In other words butt out.
Bradley
Because if thats all I have to do to get a slashdot story about me, I would in a heartbeat. ;-)
You don't mistakenly lift code from someone else's work and forget that it was GPL'd. How can a commercial developer claim to have done this by mistake? At the very least, even if they intended to replace the code they've derived their work at a fundamental level from someone elses copyright code.
Leaving this driver downloadable without releasing the module source code should not be acceptable. It is in breach of the GPL, the honorable thing to do is pull the drivers or release the code. In fact now that the binary is out there, releasing the code isn't optional, it's a requirement under the GPL unless the original author waives the right(if they can). That's exactly the point of the GPL. Using the GPL'd code as a stopgap until you replace it is also against the spirit and letter of the license. It would be almost impossible for nVidia to demonstrate that their replacement code was not derived from or influenced by the design of the original work. They can't exactly claim to have the reverse engineered the replacement code now that the original is written into their work.
Release the code! It shouldn't be a request, it should be an unequivocal demand.
There's another issue here. Namely commercial developers trawling through open source code, seeing how it's done then implementing it in a proprietary binary, even if they don't directly lift the code. Is this acceptable reverse engineering or is it theft? Clearly nVidia has crossed the line with a few lines of code but what about the rest of the code involved?
It has nothing to do with FSF or RMS. If the developer let's it slide that's his business, if he doesn't then they're breaking the GPL, even if FSF, RMS and Tux the penguin disagrees.
FYI they won't see any of the margin above MSRP, that's supply & demand on the distribution side. i.e. probably the retailer sticking it to you. Any IHV will only see a small fraction of the MSRP and with OEM's making most of the boards it's probably a VERY small fraction.
Oh, and lest we all forget Linux is still insignificant in terms of card volumes right now.
Not all code is GPL...
there is for example the BSD license under which what nVIDIA did would be completely acceptable. There was prolly just some sort of misunderstanding at some point along the line.
Good drivers mean better performance. For instance, on Linux, 3dfx kicks nVidias ass, even though nVidia's hardware is better, because 3dfx's Linux drivers are far superior to nVidia's.
I understand poorly written drives can degrade performance, what i don't understand is why does nVIDIA care if 3dfx can see how they wrote their drivers? I'd think most of their 'secrets' would be in the chipset.
So probably the drivers have to convert from 32 bit to 16 bit color. Stuff like that.
Ok, but that seems rather trivial. Why would 3dfx care if anyone knew their software had to do that? Do you know of something less trivial done in the software?
And, nothing personal, but if you're asking this you probably _can't write a better driver (neither could I).
Opps, you're right..I should probably be someone else.
No, that's what SVGA drivers are for: they run on virtually any video card, and they're quite slow.
Ok, well then it seems to me that nVIDIA shouldn't care about opening the source, because it wouldn't help anyone using a 3dfx card. The only reason i can think of is if they thought of a spiffy new way to do a 3d xform in the software or something, and wanted to hide it. But i've heard no claims of that, and even if i did, i would wonder why its not being done in the HW. I mean the whole point of the 3d card is to take the load of the cpu, so it can do other stuff, no? I understand your points and the importance of drives, i just don't understand what could be in nVIDIAs drivers that makes them think if 3dfx got them, 3dfx could bury nVIDIA.
If it used the GPL, I wouldn't be able to use it in any game that I'm selling without opening the source.
:)
Actually i don't think thats the case. If they were to gpl it, it would probably use the lgpl. But the fact that you use that lgpl'ed library wouldn't mean you'd have to open the source for your product. Of course i could be wrong, so someone feel free to correct me
nVidia is inviting the competition to inspect the secret sauce and help them in developing their own recipes.
Ok, someone tell me why the drivers are the hottest thing about all these 3d cards? I thought it was the chip that was doing the real work, why do these companies know if I can write a better driver? Would that better driver be able to drive any 3d card? If thats the case, why waste money on the hardware we're getting if its only the software that matters. No one has explained this to me yet..
By reading this post you agree to give me $10,000.
We aren't even sure the GPL as it is will hold up in court. Adding more bullshit to it certainly will not help.
^Z
Well, it seems like a good idea, but it would be more harmful than good.
Right now, NVIDIA is cautiously moving towards the Linux world. They don't want to give out their intellectual property for fear of giving the competition an advantage. Let them see that won't be the case. If we were to hit them full-on with a lawsuit the results would be companies would simply not touch Linux with a 10-foot pole for fear of another suit.
Better to talk them into doing the right thing. Considering that they were caught once, they probably won't do it again.
Lawsuits aren't the answer - tactful enforcement and encouragement are.
i agree that the story was handled well, but shouldn't the fsf be using cases such as this one to make a little money?
nvidia is a wealthy company. in the last year their stock jumped from around $20 a share to over $90 today.
perhaps the fsf could hire a lawyer to sue nvidia for copyright violation and with ralphs permission the settlement money would go to the fsf to fund further open source development. IANAL so i'm not really sure if it is possible to make any money off of such a case but it was just an idea.
On the other hand it might scare off companies from wanting to have anything to do with GPL'd code or linux if they can get burned so easily.
In other words, how can GNU be so holy if the little copyright "c" is meaningless? I'm curious as to thoughts.
First off, I think people are amazingly good at holding countless contradictory ideas simultaneously, so this kind of attitude doesn't really surprise me.
Personally I think that the idea of Intellectual Property is inherently bankrupt. The only ideas you "own" are those ideas inside your head. Now I have heard all of the arguments for patents and copyright, and realize that their are currently some societal advantages to having a concept of IP. This doesn't however, sway me from the ideal that IP is bogus, it just proves that creating a productive society without IP is arguably difficult.
That said, when given the choice I gpl all of my code. If I must play by societies rules, then I am going to do my best to "force" my code to be open. Is this hypocritical? Perhaps, but until we enact a system without IP it is the way I have chosen to "fight".
-chris (gandalf@darkcorner.net)
>What if NVidia had just used a clever algorithm
>they found in an open source project?
Are you one of these people who think ideas shouldn't be free?
IMHO, algorithms are the same as mathematics. Open source software should be proud of their spreading of good algorithms.
We _could_ take them to court, sue, threaten, etc. But then wouldn't we be fighting the same way they do? I thought open-source was all about being better. Giving instead of taking. Sharing source-code so people can learn. We could sue and try to cripple their company for using our code without giving back to the community just like those people who wrote the original code did, however, we need to keep a calm and level head about this instead of tossing in a few laywers to do the job.
Companies like nVidia will learn if all of us sys admins and full time 3d gamers choose not to put up with their shit anymore. Just stop buying nVidia. If money doesn't flow their way, they won't be able to get in ours asking for more. Commercialism, unlike open-source, requires funding and lots of it. If they want to be closed they won't conform to standards for linux, their 3D drivers for linux already suck and don't conform to DRI. So I see no need to ever pay nVidia for any hardware. Use ATI or Matrox or anyone who supports Linux and the open-source community.
___
Ok, someone tell me why the drivers are the hottest thing about all these 3d cards?
Good drivers mean better performance. For instance, on Linux, 3dfx kicks nVidias ass, even though nVidia's hardware is better, because 3dfx's Linux drivers are far superior to nVidia's.
I thought it was the chip that was doing the real work, why do these companies know if I can write a better driver?
The chip is doing the work, but often drivers do quite a bit as well. For instance the Voodoo3 uses 16-bit color internally, but 32 bit interfaces on the drivers (this is actually probably wrong but it works as an example). So probably the drivers have to convert from 32 bit to 16 bit color. Stuff like that.
And, nothing personal, but if you're asking this you probably _can't write a better driver (neither could I). But people working on XFree86, Utah-GLX, and Mesa probably can (given register-level specs and/or a GPLed, unobfuscated driver).
Would that better driver be able to drive any 3d card?
No, that's what SVGA drivers are for: they run on virtually any video card, and they're quite slow. The reason we have different drivers for different cards is to take advantage of specific properties of the card.
If thats the case, why waste money on the hardware we're getting if its only the software that matters. No one has explained this to me yet..
Well, that's why I have a Voodoo3 and not a nVidia card... the hardware is important but so is the software (in this case the drivers). I was using the SVGA driver on an i740, then started using the SVGA driver on a Voodoo3. Software stayed the same, but the hardware got better. Then I got the 3dfx drivers and things got better still. Software and hardware always work together. Linux on a 10 Mhz 386 would suck, as would MS-DOS on an Athlon. They would suck for different reasons, but both would suck.
>By keeping their software closed, they *will*
fall behind other companies who opened their stuff to the world.
Damn straight...but let the manufactors figure that out over time. First things first is to get them to take that 'journey of 1000 miles' with a first step.
BSD has less of a byte to it than the GPL. Having a manufactor be once bit, 0x02 shy over OpenSource does Micro$oft good, and OpenSource no good.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
You are absolutely right that GPLed software is IP, and belongs to it's authors. RMS did not have the subversion of all copyright concepts in mind when he wrote the GPL - if you want to do that, you can release stuff in the public domain.
When I write software under the GPL, it is because I want it to be given away, used for free, and for people to be able to modify it and use it as they like. But I do not want someone else to be able to make money from it - if they want to do that, they can pay me to write software.
I would be interested to see whether the FSF and other authors would be interested in licencing parts of their GPLed software under a sperate licence for commercial companies. This would have enabled nVidia to avoid this mess, and could actually earn some money for the people that deserve it. But of course they would have had to pay the author - how unlike a large company, eh? To be fair, maybe they never even considered this possibility.
The only other obligatory comment is of course that MS may now be not so desperate not to reveal their source code. It is quite likely that they have used bits (at least) from other sources, now they can just promise it will be changed in time for windows 2000 service pack X.
Thank You!! Finally someone understands...
...
No, that is what the "Lesser GPL" (formerly Library GPL) does. The (greater?) GPL both keeps improvements free, and prevents most use in non-open software (in fact, not just non-open, but non-GPL). You can not use GPL'ed code in a open source project that uses a non-GPL license. It's the same for MPL'ed code too.
By putting your code under the GPL, you are restricting someone else's decision about your code. If I create something, then put it under the GPL, I am denying anyone else from doing what they want with it. If they rewrite the thing, but include even a snippet of my code, they must include the source for the whole thing, or I can sue. Isn't the whole point of Open Source the free exchange of information?? If you are so worried about someone making a buck off your work, then why did you publish in the first place??
By using something like the BSDL, you can get your thoughts/ideas out there, and you don't restrict anyone's use of it. When I release something under the BSDL, I am offering other developers the same choice that I had, release it as commercial, keep it public, GPL-it, whatever. The point is that people who use the GPL are doing the same thing that closed source people are (albeit in the opposite direction).
A good analogy for this is the recent debate in Oklahoma about Evolution/Creationism. They first got textbooks to remove the "Evolution is fact, Creation is myth" in favor of "Evolution is a theory, just like Creationism". Then they turn around and want the textbooks to say "Creationism is correct, and Evolution is ". They have used the "open" argument to remove unwanted text from the books, and are now using the "closed" argument to eliminate their "competition".
The GPL is not the free exchange of information. It is as highly restricted as closed sourcing your project, except in the opposite direction.
Just my 2c. TheJet
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
The "Top 10" Reasons to procrastinate:
10.
3dfx's drivers are way ahead, and much better, and alot contributing to that is because they are open..
Actually, the nVidia GeForce is the fastest card you can get for Linux right now, and the drivers (which I have been using since they came out) are quite stable. Haven't crashed on me yet, and I have been playing Q3A quite a bit over the past few days.
Not that I am happy about this GPL violation, or the fact that the drivers are closed, but they are VERY good drivers, especially considering the fact that they are "beta".
------
GPL is only in place *because* of copyright/patent/IP laws.
If it were a free world, we'd all copy and modify and distribute -- and everyone would have more of every piece of intellectual property.
In a world without copyrights, everything would be public domain. You could modify and redistribute, without having to give the source away. There would be no way to enforce the conduct required by the GPL, and everyone would have less of every piece of creative work since there would be less incentive to create in the first place.
Many posts are commenting on the number of violations to the GPL. Some view Linux as Up and Comming, others think Linux is already here, and the extreme say Linux has already taken over. No matter how you view the position of Linux, it can always be described as growing. This growth puts hardware manufacturers in two positions. First they must be willing to include Linux Support for their hardware, and truely be multi-platform capable to compete. Second, in the course of supporting multiple OS's, they may come up with ideas or code to better their product or drivers. This is a step in the right direction for both Linux Users and Hardware Manufacturers, both sides can gain. Linux Coders can't expect every company to tell the secrets of how they make their bread any more than HardCos can just steal GPL code. Accidents are bound to happen and if the HardCo is willing to take steps to fix the problem, we should be nice about giving them the chance to do so. If companies start to feel threatened or even scared about writing Linux support then they may just bag the whole project and tell the Linux Coders to write their own drivers (and don't violate us). If manufacturers start getting the impression that working with and developing in Linux is a quick way to get Shafted, Screwed, and Sued then Linux development may never get it's day in the MainStream. Don't ever let GPL Violations slide by, Always make the Violation come to resolution, but Never remove this little bug from a Coders forehead with a Hatchet.
Opinions Expressed by me should be Forced on Others - PbHead
Opinions Expressed by Me should be Forced on Others - PbHead
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
Even funnier when afore-mentioned company just received a large advance from M$ for developing the new GPU's for the X-Box.
Let's face it. Linux, and the general culture of copyleft is under siege. RIAA, mp3.com, DeCSS, the list goes on and on. The line must be drawn here. The GPL is the one weapon we have against those who would like nothing more than to see Linux wither and die.
A weapon isn't a weapon if your enemies doubt your will to use it.
Sue NVidia. Demonstrate that violating the GPL has very real consequences. Even if we got $0.01 in damages, or got them to open the source to the driver, our point would be made:
I am not saying that Ralph should demand "all sorts of concessions" from nVidia; however, they are under a legal obligation to follow the License, whether Ralph chooses to enforce it or not.
That is simply not true. If they took only Ralph's code, they can do whatever they want with it as long as they have Ralph's blessing. The GPL is legally based on copyright, and there is no such thing as a copyright violation that occurs with the copyright holder's permission. By licensing his code under the GPL, Ralph did not give up his rights as the author to grant additional rights to use his code to whomever he wishes.
Granted, companies and developers make mistakes. But lets be honest. They had that chunk of code because they intended to steal it or copy its functionality so that they didn't have to write it themselves. They may not have realized that it was GPL'd and therefore watched over by the ever-zealous gnumongers, but that developer sure as hell didn't wake up one morning with all this code on his screen and say "Wow, I guess I must have writen this and forgot about it." He knew he was taking it, and he would have gotten away with it were it not for the fact the author was in the right place at the right time and had his curiocity with him.
And do you think he's learned his lesson? You bet he has! When he steals someone else's code next time, he'll be more careful to hide it.
--
You don't care, because as long as you get your 100 frames per second in Q3A, who cares who else gets screwed, right?
If you don't see what's wrong with this picture, you're not looking hard enough. If Microsoft did this, there would have been a dozen or more lawsuits filed this morning, and you know it.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
The fact is, not only have the original author's rights to this code been infringed... anyone who has downloaded the binary now has a *legal and binding* right to the source code for this driver... The driver is now a *derivative work*, and we now (we being people who have downloaded the binary) have a right to the source... like it or not, they have backed themselves into a corner and must now pay the price.
I will send $$$s to anyone willing to challenge this in court... not because I own one of their cards but a) they have infringed the GPL, and their response is less than satisfactory and b) open source drivers are always good, and now we have a right to the source for their driver, we should seize it...
Ask yourself, if you were to rip a section of their code (by reverse engineering or whatever), would they be so understanding??? Even if they removed the driver immediately (which they are not) the work they have supplied is a derivative of GPL code, and thus they *have* to supply the source to anyone they supplied the binary to.
Simon
The real linux_penguin has Slashdot ID 101961. Anyone else is an impostor. Including Bruce Perens.
Problem is, I find it hard to believe that anyone could 'mistakenly' include GPL'ed source into a close sourced project.
Im sure there are plenty of close sourced projects that include GPLed code.. difference with Nvidia is, they got caught.
Also, remember, *my* and *your* rights are being infringed, not just the guy that wrote the code... we have a right to the code now, and we should make Nvidia cough up....
Simon
The real linux_penguin has Slashdot ID 101961. Anyone else is an impostor. Including Bruce Perens.
This little flap will serve to open their eyes to the values of open source. At this point, a greater portion of the company has become aware that they are in fact using open source tools to meet their production goals. They are a little bit more aware than before.
Also, it would be bad to scare off a company from using open source works. Imagine if managers had the option of saying, "We can't use that stuff or we'll be sued."
So what if they use it in the development process, and only switch it out at the last minute with their own stuff. This means their developers are all using open source code. This is good. As these people move on up the chain, it will become more and more accepted.
Open source is a long fight. Let's win hearts and minds, not court cases.
t
>>Can I take 10% of a source file as "fair use"?
As I understand it, fair use is something along the lines of "using part of a copyrighted material for the purposes of criticism, discussion, or parody" something like that. I fail to see how you can copy ANY part of a copyrighted work just to compile it into your own code. Thats not fair use, you're not criticising the code or making a parody of it you're just cutting and pasting it into something else to be used for the exact same purpose.
>>Can I look at the GPL'd code and work out the algorithms and write my new code based on that?
I would imagine so, unless amazon.com owns a patent for the algorithm already, hehehehe
Maybe a developer was trying to circumvent his bosses decision to not open source the drivers by including GPLed code and notifying the developer in hopes he'd say "hey! open source it now, thats how the GPL works," but instead they just politely asked to remove the code.
I definitely agree with you about this. Not only is the company in violation about the GPL, but nothing's being done about it! Yes, saying "we'll fix it next time" is better than "ha ha! You can't do anything!" but not by much. IMHO, that's the standard proprietary software response to ANYTHING. Not only should they be required to remove the code in the next release if they want to keep it closed, but they should have to lisence the current one under the GPL. After all, that's the restriction they agreed to for exercising their extra rights granted under the GPL, no?
-RickHunter
Thank you for replying without flaming! Yes, I agree with you. They exercised their rights and ignored the conditions we put on them. If they don't open it, they're violating a lisence. As others have pointed out, what would they do to a free software coder if he/she reverse-engineered and GPLed their driver? We should ask them a couple of times to GPL it, and if they don't, the FSF or the author should sue.
As for your replacement card, I recommend a Matrox. They may not be bleeding-edge performance, but they're decent. I personally use a Millennium G200 (mid-end), and I like it. Their drivers are pretty good, and they offer drivers for a wide range of systems (even OS/2!). The cards have flashable chipsets, too. And I believe that their drivers are, if not free software, than very open-source.
-RickHunter
If copyright law went away overnight (in some soft of magical fairyland, no doubt), I suspect that companies would simply move to a contract form of software distribution, with distribution only from their own company.
Software stores would vanish immediately. The contracts would be horrendously specific in their terms. No person under 18 in the US at least would ever get to use that software again, I'm sure. And you can imagine that the penalties for violation of the contract would be as severe as possible.
Tim Gaastra
Tim Gaastra
Build a better mousetrap and the world will immediately get their fingers caught in it.
If truth surfaces showing that they definately did this intentionally in an attempt to profit off of other's work unfairly, or they get caught doing it again, or don't fix this mistake, yeah, bring the axe down on them.
If it was an honest mistake, and they promptly fix it like they said they will, then suing them and wasting everyone's money in the courts seems a little childish.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
There's a big difference between doing what you suggest and copying a few lines for a driver and promising to fix it in a couple weeks when the problem is pointed out.
Yeah, what they did was wrong. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe it wasn't, either way, handling it with polite and productive discussion is definately the best way.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
As stated, this was an oversight and will be fixed. They care about both the customer and their own necks. What good company doesn't care about both?
As for the drivers they have about three choices right?
One - open source the driver. This isn't NVidia's plan or business model and I can't blame them for not doing so, they write good drivers on their own and I wouldn't want other companies being able to release an open source driver with half of my code in it. NVidia has done some amazing things through their software, at least in the windows side of things. They did SLI through software when 3dfx had to hardwire it in. Not only that but games ran 20 fps faster with this software fix. No wonder NVidia doesn't want their code to get out.
Two - kill the driver. They should be able to say it was their bad and stop, right? That would cause them not to be in violation anymore, because the driver wouldn't exist for anybody to download. Sure there are copies that others have, but NVidia wouldn't be distributing it anymore. You might still be able to sue, but then under the same thought you could sue if they changed the driver to use no GPL'd code today, because they did use GPL'd code in the driver before the change. This probably wouldn't be the swiftest move, because it would piss off the people with NVidia cards that wanted a driver for linux. Of course they wouldn't be in violation anymore...
Three - continue to violate the GPL for another week or two. This really isn't that long, and allows people with good hardware to have drivers to utilize it. Considering much of the gaming market is in Windows software NVidia would still have a market for their cards without linux drivers. Hell, they've had that market long enough and are doing great. Considering linux users probably want NVidia to release drivers to linux NVidia has a little bit of breathing room, right? It will be fixed and in the meantime the users can be happy with the drivers.
They were polite and are taking care of the problem fast. Let them off so they'll keep working at solutions for linux. Or sue them and watch them drop linux. Watch other companies follow suit when they realize that they can get burned big time if one employee makes an oversight. Linux has a lot to lose by being too aggressive. Nvidia's cards are really nice and I wonder who would be losing more, Nvidia or linux?
If not now, when?
That being said, of course, they could always write a function which calls a separate trivial library which contains the code in question, and release the trivial library and it's source code. I reckon that's one way to satisfy (around?) the letter of the GPL.
:-(
Nope - ISTR that's the LGPL. (glibc, for example, allows commercial programs to link to it, subject to certain conditions.) GPLed code can't be used in this way.
This is a bit of a problem for the Apache project ATM - there's an authentication module someone's written for Apache to allow it to check passwords against a Samba or NT server. Unfortunately, it uses code from Samba (GPL) - so it can't be incorporated into Apache
I'll just answer them in turn:
1)
No, there is no percentage of fair use.
2)
Nope, not that either. It's still the same source.
3)
Not if you copy it keystroke by keystroke (except the names).
4)
Yes, you need a patent to protect the algorithm (and even then certain algorithms will be hard to protect).
You could of course write exactly the same code by mistake. That is not a violation. But unless you can prove that you have written exactly the same code without ever looking at the source you are copying you will go down in court...
Sorry, nvidia. We have to punish you for not being exactly like us. You have a good point there. And I'm sure that if I messed up and started selling a piece of software that also included a DLL from, say, Microsoft Office, that Microsoft would politely ask me to stop. And that they'd accept as a response "Well, I won't take it out of this release, and I'll keep on selling it just the way it is. But I promise that I'll get around to writing my own code sometime and stop using yours. Really." Sure.... that would happen. While I'm not saying that we should drag the FSF and some lawyers in here, try to remember that if the shoe were on the other foot, it would be a bloody mess.
- fader
If this was the other way around, Nvidia would probably being suing the pants off him.
----
Oh my god, Bear is driving! How can this be?
ADVENTURERS! - ANTIHERO FOR HIRE - CARDMASTER CONFLICT
Whats to understand? An author of a work owns a copyright, an exclusive right to make copies. He or she can give a copy to anyone he wishes on whatever terms they wish. Microsoft can sell one Windows CD for $200 and another for $75. Identical disks if they want.
A software developer can distribute code to anyone he or she wishes. They own it. The person who receives the code can't produce additional copies, since that is a right granted only to the copyright holder. If the copyright holder wants someone else to distribute copies of the work, they can grant a license to allow them to do it. Each license to each distributor can be negotiated individually. One person can get a license as long as they pay you are $5 per copy royalty. Another can get a license for a $300 flat fee. A third can get a license as long as they agree to distribute the source code.
There are some real world examples of combination proprietary and GPL licenses both being used on the same code. Aladdin (the Ghostscript people) use at least three licenses. They have a relatively free license for most people. For commercial companies that can't abide by the free license, they are willing to negotiate additional licenses. And then for older versions, they release things under the GPL.
The thing that makes most open source projects difficult to multiple licenses is the number of people involved. If you have many contributors, and they have all distributed their code under the GPL, then to grant a different license it would require that all of the contributors agree on the new license terms.
I spend a whole lot of time fuming over news of companies who aren't as honorable as Nvidia.
It sure is nice to see an article praising the example of companies who do right by the Linux community. Way to go Nvidia and way to go Slashdot
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Hypothetical: Nvidia discovers that a driver released by Matrox (or substitute your favorite vidio company here) violates an NVidia copyright. Nvidia contacts Matrox and Matrox replies "Oops, our bad. We'll fix it on our next release in a couple of weeks." What do you suppose Nvidia's response would be?
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
Why I bring this up is because I don't think it will ever become company policy to steal GPL code (if it ever did, they would get caught, ether by reverse engineering techniques or by ethical employes blowing the whistle.)
The point that I am trying to make is that some free software will be stolen, but that is not a problem as it will be remote. And I don't think it will ever significantly help the software companies or hurt free software.
It's just not that much of an issue.
Jordan Bettis
``Wherever you go, there's another stupid sigfile quote.''A lot of people here seem comfortable, simultaneously, with two very contradictory ideas. On the one hand, there's the idea that someone who kills someone to get their wallet, has no real right to demand people's wallets, or to shoot people who refuse. On the other hand, there's the idea that someone who is being forced to surrender his wallet has every right to both demand ownership of his own wallet, and to shoot people who try to take it by shooting him.
There's a deep conflict between those ideas, and Slashdotters who adore non-violence and ignore violent self-defense need to recognize that and somehow resolve it.
In other words, how can non-violence be so holy if supposedly non-violent people must kill in self-defense? I'm curious as to thoughts.
Epilogue: Like a gun, a copyright is a tool -- it can be used for good or bad; for defense or invasion. Also like guns (in fact even more so), copyrights are in the vast majority of cases used for bad, and that is the reason that many hold they should be abolished. (Whether this holds true for guns, of course, is another issue.) Using a copyright to force people to respect the rights of a person, while at the same time opposing copyrights because they are usually used to deny the rights of a person, whether or not it is in the end sound, is not a contradiction. Like killing in self-defense, it merely requires a slightly deeper level of thought.
As a freak of 3DFX devices, i now realize how much Nvidia is decent, if a company does a mistake, on a thing that is quite important, at least to me, and they are willing to fix it, i say, go Nvidia go, i love you, now i apriciate you more, next card i buy is nvidia, just because you respect GPL so much....
Dan.
Are their fears justified? Who knows, but nVidia has decided not to take that risk and unless you own stock in them, you don't have the right to argue about that descision.
All of this, of course, is seperate from what they did here - they can't just pick up random code off the net and include it in their drivers without permission!
Go Badgers! -- #include "std/disclaimer.h"
Sure it would hurt you to be required to release your (superior) AI modifications but I think that it's the price you need to pay when using GPLed software. When compared to buying prorietary source (in this case Quake from ID - you surely can do it) I consider the price really low. There is no free lunch (or was it spoon?).
_________________________
_________________________
Spelling and grammar mistakes left as an exercise for the reader.
This was a beautiful day for open source, we proved to the world that we can all play much more maturely than many other companies.
Munky_v2
"Warning: You are logged into reality as root..."
Jay
This is probably the best post I've read on this discussion yet. But, unfortunately, it won't get moderated up because it was posted as #88, not #10.
And I suppose it is also non-standard in view. Pity.
I'll take you to court (without being able to plead damages, because no money was lost.)
Remember the Dr. Dre suit? A copyright owner can sue for up to $100,000 in statutory damages.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Could someone elaborate on this one? I thought this would result in two different distributions, with the same code.
Of course they could always start claiming that there was an existing agreement before the driver was distributed but that is a different subject
It would be rather nice to have them actually Open source the code (it is still not working for me :( ) but I agree that they did handle this nicely. However, it would be rather difficult to not grab a chunk of code you used and be restricted to not GPL'ing it. I can't imagine how many more people probably fit into this same category.
Creative was not going to release SBLive! drivers as open source, but that changed rather rapidly when they realized that they could harness Open Source development to reduce development costs and keep up with the enternally evolving Linux kernel.
/dev/sndstat, /dev/sequencer) but generally work; when the (presumably fully featured) closed source drivers are released, will your average user care about the open source drivers?
There are two Creative SBLive! drivers - the open source drivers and the yet-to-be-released closed source drivers, based on the Windows LiveWare code. The open source drivers still lack major features (e.g.
Sometimes methinks the FSF goes after violators in a much less overt way by pressuring the company for a donation of money or equipment in exchange for not going to court.
Anyone seen this happen to their company?
timbu
Would sueing (or threatening to sue) NVIDIA under GPL violation be an incentive for them to open source their existing kernel module? If this happened, I am sure that the OSS community would begin to create parallel (and better) drivers.
All that microsoft FUD about open source must of worked...
-- We should kill all the intolerant people in the world.
It seems to me that anyone who wants to can download the binary with the infringing code, reverse engineer it, and use/put it in anything they want. Likewise, if you can find someone who works at the company you could get the source code and distribute that too. Of course, I am not a lawyer, so don't try this at home (unless you are willing to risk the consequences).
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Im curious...im sure that the module had a version number, and wass officially released with whatever number. Now, wouldnt the GPL require the official release with that version to be GPL'd? Or are they allowed to say "oops" and re-released that version under a non-gpl license?
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Whoops, sorry one of our employees ripped GPL'ed code and used it in a binary-only release. But do we have a deal for you! We'll, (1) not release the source, (2) say "we're sorry" 500 times, (3) release a new closed-source binary sometime between tomorrow and the day of the flying swine.
Nivida hasn't done shit. They changed changed their PR spin and a bunch of nerds fell for it. Wake up people!
I don't think a video card company is going to find some great, hidden knowledge in "bttv.c". I'm sure their programmers could produce something very similar in no time at all.
Then why didn't they? They never actually explained how the code got in there. It was a mistake? Explain the mistake, step by step. Including how they missed the the copyrights and gpl at the top of the source, and how they magically copy'n'pasted or however they 'accidentally' duplicated it. It's pure bullshit.
I didn't mean to copy all those mp3s, it was an honest mistake...just slipped by. I'll fix it in a couple weeks.
Well said.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
C'mon, you've never used a piece of placeholder code? Ever?
They made an honest mistake not to take the code out. They'll have it fixed soon enough. Let's wait and see what they do before rushing to judgment.
I definitely agree. nVidia, although not necessarily "profiting" from open source code, is benefiting from it and not following through by making the module open. If DeCSS can cause such a ruckus over copyright issues, the next time this happens the offending company should be required to make a donation to the FSF or other organization.
peas,
-Kabloona
In addition to going to court, we (or the author anyway) should consider this:
Why did he write the code? Since he put it under the GPL, it probably wasn't to make money. So Nvidia's actions probably didn't cause him to lose any money. So, if people were to pitch in to to help take this case (or another similar one) to court, it would get the ball rolling. We could test out the GPL in court, and since the author of the code didn't expect anything to begin with, if we win, he (or she) could take the winnings, pay off any personal legal expenses, and put the rest into some sort of community-administered defense fund/war chest.
Of course, there's the issue of who would administer the fund, but I'm sure we could all come to some sort of amicable agreement. (Oh no, what have I started!!)
As well, I think that if there's any fairness in this world, we could get companies like Redhat or VA Linux to help out with this, considering the amount of profit they've gotten out of GPL'd software.
In the CPHack case, if Mattel / MSI didn't file the lawsuit, it would have been a non-story. No thousands of mirror sites, not people talking about email bombs.
MSI could have changed the encryption (really scrambling) technique, then use a different technique for the passwords. Then block the sites with the code. And block the site
That is of course assuming that they didn't do this for publicity.
Once a company files a lawsuit, people dig in their heels, call for publicity, and then fight back hard.
In my lawsuit, most of the press coverage was due to their countersuit for the website libel.
Fight Spammers!
Mr. Metzler contacted NVidia and approved their plan to sort of sweep this under the rug. Hey, fine, that's a very civilized and decent thing to do. But the rest of us did no such thing. In fact, there are quite a few people pissed off enough to demand NVidia's code.
IANAL, but I believe everybody on the planet has a very legal claim to that code now. We have a right to demand it, and if we don't get it, we have a right to sue for it (and hopefully win).
GPL software is more-or-less communally owned, so the developer's OK just isn't enough. The whole world has to be nice to NVidia and other companies who accidentally include GPL code.
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Dammit, my mom is not a Karma whore!
What are they? A hardware selling company or a driver selling company. They have nothing to gain and everything to lose by not providing open sourced drivers to a community of users who would surely give back and enrich the code far beyond anything Nvidia could do on their own. They are cutting off their nose to spite their face and I am not impressed with their tepid apology and dry corporate response. - -
Me a troll, me no gnome, me smash ye head and break ye bones.
Exactly. We share and they hoard. We get warm fuzzy feelings about our sharing.... and they get lots and lots of money.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I want to clear up 2 points made in the article.
First of all, I was not looking through the 2.3 kernel sources. I was looking through the Nvidia
kernel driver sources (more specifically the file nv.c) to see if they could be adapted to work with 2.3 kernels because I could not compile them on my setup (2.3.99-pre6).
And am I happy with them removing the code as soon as possible?
Well, of course I am happy with that compared to them not doing anything at all about it.
But it does not mean I would not consider taking other steps if "as soon as possible" turns out to be very long or never.
An INSTANT SOLUTION for Nvidia would be to take code out of their driver RIGHT NOW and provide a (GPLed) kernel patch with their drivers to include the code in the kernels memory management functions.
This code, or at least something with the same functionality, belongs there anyway. Several (GPLed) drivers already use them and have an unnecessary extra copy in their code.
Ohh, and since I think it also was not mentioned before what code we are talking about.
Its about the memory pointer conversion routines
uvirt_to_pa() up to nv_vfree().
While those are hard to implement any other way, Nvidia did not need to take them line for line with almost the same function names and even including the original comments out of a GPLed file.
Ralph Metzler
"The corporate attitude is probably that stealing open-source code is okay." I wouldn't be surprised if that is one of the reasons they have a no open-source policy in place. It seems odd (but definitely good) that they quickly responded. Then again maybe they aren't quite as antagonistic as I am. :) or paranoid. . .
Isn't it nice that the altercation was settled politely instead of with legal action?
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ftp://ftp.cs.berkeley.edu/pub/4bsd/README.Impt.Lic ense.Change
July 22, 1999
To All Licensees, Distributors of Any Version of BSD:
As you know, certain of the Berkeley Software Distribution ("BSD") source
code files require that further distributions of products containing all or
portions of the software, acknowledge within their advertising materials
that such products contain software developed by UC Berkeley and its
contributors.
Specifically, the provision reads:
" * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
* must display the following acknowledgement:
* This product includes software developed by the University of
* California, Berkeley and its contributors."
Effective immediately, licensees and distributors are no longer required to
include the acknowledgement within advertising materials. Accordingly, the
foregoing paragraph of those BSD Unix files containing it is hereby deleted
in its entirety.
William Hoskins
Director, Office of Technology Licensing
University of California, Berkeley
Please note: I am not William Hoskins. William Hoskins is the author of the article referenced by the url. Not that I would expect anyone to mistake me for William Hoskins...
But what is wrong with trying to settle the manner in a gentlemanly way? Wouldn't the world be better if everyone, before jumping on the lawsuit bandwagon, tried to settle things politely. It seems to me that the way to gain respect for Linux is if we act better than the large faceless corporations, not stoop to their level. The best way to develop good relations with these companies to convince them to open their code is to try and solve these types of problems without threats and such. I fully agree, however, that if they refuse to comply after peaceful talks, then lawsuits, threats, etc. are neccessary.
I haven't been able to read all the comments in this thread. I jumped in a little late and RL intrudes too much. I didn't see anyone else make the same point I'm about to make, but, if you did, I apologize...
....Paul
What I see as missing is the problem with copyrighted code in the first place. I guess I'm kinda preaching to the converted, but... What is nVidia going to do now? I mean, they've already had a good look at the code to perform the stuff they need. They have access to it as a template/guide. Once you've had a look, how truly original can anything you (or NVidia) write to replace the stolen code be? Yes, they'll fix it in a few weeks. Doctor it up a bit so that it doesn't match character for character...
This brings up a whole issue... Some Linux/UNIX man pages have snippets of code in them showing use cases for the particular function or library. While perhaps not copied wholesale, the spirit of this code is often copied. The man pages for Linux would be part of the GPL too, no?
What about code examples in programming tomes?
Can any code be truly copyrighted? It is entirely possible that two people working independently could come up with the same code to solve the same problem...
F U NE X N M? Son: "Dad... How do you spell 'hourly'?" Dad: "0 * * * *"
DON'T SUE NVIDIA! Wait until the next GPL fiasco. If it makes you look bad publishing a violation before talking with the parties in violation, imagine what it'll look like if you tell a company "You made a mistake, fix it." and then next week say "Oh, we're sueing you anyway."
Not a very good idea - NVidia being sued by a bunch of OSS advocates would more than likely get some press coverage. And if someone said that NVidia was told to correct their problem but people sued anyway then that sounds to me like it would be bad press. And OSS advocates definately don't need to shoot themselves in the foot.
Next company that does it, maybe sue them. But not NVidia, especially after they said they'll fix it.
(On the other hand, if they don't fix it after several months, sue them!!! )
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Exactly... take a look at the Line-Item Veto that was shot down by the Supreme Court a couple of years ago... who filed the lawsuit? A team of 3 Republican congressmen, (Dole and 2 others IIRC.) Has to be an interested party to file a lawsuit.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Simple and elegant! Every company would just go to the site, install a small client software and make a search through their source code. Client software is necessary to prevent them uploading their commercial source code to your site. As I recall, companies can become quite paranoid about their source code...
Any ideas and desire, Slashdot people?
>I'll donate money to the legal offense fund.
That is an interesting thought, and if I may borrow from your thinking, how about it? As a community, open-sourcers should consider creating a donation-driven legal defense fund. It would work like any other organization of its type:
- against organizations friendly to open-source, it would not be needed or employed;
- against organizations not friendly to open-source, it would be litigious and ruthless.
As much as some find it questionable, this seems like a great tool to bring more companies under the umbrella of open-source (through settlement?), and reward those who already are. Just a thought on how to survive in the hardball world of lawyers and software.
-L
as long as others choose to enforce copyright then the GPL is needed to defend free source from exploitation by copyright users as well as exploitation
if/when the blessed day dawns and companies abandon the ownership of ideas then everyone can use GPL'd material without reference to the licence.
GPL doesn't restrict anyone who claims no ownership of what they gain from it
this is the digital world. we can share without loss.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Lets say i'm a big bad closed source corporation.
Lets say i give my programmers code to work with.. without telling THEM its GPL
Lets say we distribute binary only releases based on it.
Damm hard for anyone to even tell if the source code was GPL to begin with right?
Lets say someone can figure it out, or gets a peak at the code and squeals to Slashdot/FSF (lets just say "the community")
Corporation apologises, corporation says it will get a fix out as soon as possible that isn't in violation.
- unless they open the code who will know its been fixed?
- not a bad way to develop, only having to do your own work where you get caught.
I think this is a good argument for signing GPL'd rights over to the FSF and for the FSF to REALLY take these buggers to the cleaners.Being knowingly in violation? at worst a very large payment to the FSF should be in order something based on days in violation of the GPL. OR they can open the code as they agreed to do when they used GPL'd code.
just my 2c
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
there might well be parts of Nvidia acting on this in good faith.
but its very likely there are other sections of management working on a "ask no questions hear no lies" strategy.
the other part of open source is of course that if they don't recontribute then they don't get their changes absorbed into the main body of code
is that a problem for card drivers tho?
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Well that's it for me - Nvidia will not be getting another cent out of me. I'll go with a company with a bit of foresight and respect for their customers.
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
And what does "copyright" mean on a piece of sourcecode anyway? What can somebody do with some GPL'd code and then release non-GPL'd code?
- Can I take 10% of a source file as "fair use"?
- Can I search and replace all variable names to be new, different variable names and then it's a new piece of code?
- Can I type in my "new" code looking at the old code and changing all the names?
- Can I look at the GPL'd code and work out the algorithms and write my new code based on that?
I don't know. Does anybody have any ideas? Lots of books are written that have very similar plots and stories, but they aren't copyright violations. How does copyright work with source code?...
However, one thing still concerns me. What would prevent N*Vidia from doing this again? How do we know that this shady "Tony Bennett" guy won't pillage from bttv.c the next time he needs to program something? Maybe every one of N*Vidia's future games will include GPLed code. Sure, we can whine and complain about it once they've done it, but it's a bit too late then, isn't it? IANAL, but if we don't take action to defend the GPL, doesn't it become invalid?
We have either two choices: A) Sit back and let the GPL waste away or B) Take action. I don't know about you, but I prefer Choice B. I propose a grassroots letter-writing campaign to your local senator or representative. Let them know about the GPL, what N*Vidia is doing, and why you think "Tony Bennett" should be banned from working on a computer for the next four year. I hate to say, but remember to be rude; as Slashdot trolls have proven, people are most likely to take action when they're being harassed by vulgar morons (look all the VA Linux stock price trolls that eventually resulting in CmdrTaco posting a story about it). Just remember above all the most important rule: Give me GNU or give me death!
Yu Suzuki
Yu Suzuki
Deamcast. It's thinking.
I agree with you, however I have to ask:
If NVidia is so much better at writing drivers, why did they use OPEN SOURCE code?
It looks to me as if Nvidia is 'borrowing' the same stuff that Matrox and ATI have been using for some time now. I think their actions speaks well of OS drivers, and perhaps you're not giving OS the credit due. Perhaps Matrox and ATI chose to go OS b/c they agree with the OS community, and not b/c their programming staff is less competent than Nvidia's..
Why do I keep typing pythong?
this whole article proves one thing to me, slashdot is a total hypocrate. Here are the things that should be done after today, on future events:
1) when bands such as metallica (or the RIAA) want to preserve their "code"(music), we shoud listen.
2) we should be more responsive toward preservation of copyrights, instead of crying out that it's the preservation of Free Speech. Under the same principals, (Information wants to be closed).
we can start by being a little less hypocritical
----artists have rights too
> Huh? We are? How so? I don't see us doing anything at all!
That's because no one wants to test the GPL in court. It's either
(a) Too expensive
(b) Afraid we'll lose
There were previous posts stating the opinion that the test of GPL in court should wait for a large corporation, with lots of money, who violated the license knowingly. Why should the license only be enforced* (bad choice of words?) under these conditions? Why can't the license be enforced for these so-called minor violations?
I, personally, think the GPL would not win in a court case. Jurors are people, and most people don't care or don't understand the concept of free software. They understand creating an idea and selling it for money. It wouldn't matter if a good lawyer argued the case for the enforcement of the GPL. Most people are clueless about this sort of thing...
It seems to be the general trend that violators are given a very light beating, not even close to compensating the OSS author for the work he/she did for a company they don't even work for. Another problem with OSS code is that its generally pretty well written and easy code to read. Definately tempting to see how someone else solved a problem...
Spring is here. Don't believe me, look outside!
The Mad Poet, maker of Anonymous Cowart
------
Populus Vult Decipi, Ergo Decipiatur.
MadPoetSociety.org
------
Fuck you all.
No, this is copyright we're talking about here. The corporations have already lobbied congress to make sure that copyright >violations carry a hefty penalty. We have all the stick we need. We can hit them where it hurts -- in the bottom line. Well you say lawsuit and I suppose that is your answer. But every person who has posted seems all they want is their nVidia card to work in Linux. Some want the source code - but it doesn't look like they are going to get that right now. So if you say lawsuit - don't you think nVidia would just say screw you - no more drivers for Linux at all? While Linux is growing in popularity - but it doesn't hold that much water.
"How can you hate - the Colonel? Because he puts and addictive chemical in his chicken that makes you crave it nightly..
"Ralph was checking out the sources for the Linux 2.3 kernel, and he noticed that a chunk of memory conversion routines were copied line for line out of his bttv.c video driver source into Nvidia's code."
/. could relay this one message from me to them;
Of course I won't flame you for not noticing, because even though I saw this, I still have to wonder how exactly what that means in plain, non-developer english (like for example how you spot line for line code grabs from a binary, did he have the source to the driver on some kind of NDA, what?)
<Rant>
Anyway. I don't see NVIDIA doing too much here except emphatically stating it'll be fixed, like "Oh Jesus, let's get this 'GPV' outta our code or someone will want to see it all. And again we will not release our code because (insert corporate droning here)".
I still think NVIDIA's a neglectful company, no matter how much some PR guy promises that they'll fix their GPL violations, especially that last statement. "Maybe we'll open source it, but we probably won't because we don't but we might so you just never know <shrug>". I wish
Either give the Linux users who own your cards decent drivers and support, or open them up so that we can do so for ourselves, or there will be no more Linux users for your products, and we'll drag as many Windows users as we can with us to the nearest friendly competitor. Got it?
Heh,
:)
I am all for what you stand for 90% of the time -- but sometimes I feel you are a little TOO open.
Look at Bugtrag -- There are no official rules for posting, but common curtesy maintains that the poster should notify the company of the product first and give about two weeks notice. After that, it is fair game.
Also, you know if I didn't write it, someone else would have
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
For what it is worth, the code wasn't included in their binary only object file, but in nv.c which is some sort of glue logic between the binary only module and the rest of the kernel.
Ah, the "life sucks and then you die" philosophy. Too bad I don't buy into that. I'll not mock the example, since it's certainly possible for some, but I will say that I seem to be supporting myself just fine without selling out. It's all about priorities. I have mine, you have yours. That they differ does not give you the right to insist that mine are somehow juvenile or inferior.
At issue here is the essence of liberty. The individual you mention has lost his liberty, not to nVidia, or to Microsoft, but to himself. He has thrown it away for something he presumably values more. I value nothing more, and will not have my liberty stripped from me nor will I throw it away for anything. He acts on his values, I on mine.
As an aside, I highly doubt the local drug dealer cares whether or not his applications are open source. His encryption keys, however...
This is not what they're claiming. In fact, there is no way they could have in good faith failed to realize the copyright on the code. You don't see a lot of companies making mistakes wherein they accidentally release proprietary code under license to them. So why are there so many "mistakes" wherein GPL'd code finds its way into proprietary code? I would argue that anyone operating in good faith would never allow GPL'd code to be so much as seen by their developers. I mean, really, is the giant 30-line copyright notice at the top of every file that easy to miss?
you can be ordered to stop ... exactly what nVidia is already doing
On their timetable it would seem.
Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Such a case would be exceedingly weak at best. They have not violated any contract with me; the contract I would have would be their own license, which they could not possibly violate. The licensors must sue. It is their copyright which is being infringed, their license which is being breached. Much as an arbitrary individual (or the ACLU, for a more concrete example) cannot simply walk into District Court and file for an injunction against whatever recent ballot initiative happens to have offended him. No, the plaintiff must be an interested party. The law is, on that at least, quite clear.
It's been 16 years. How long shall we wait?
We share. In good spirit.
We do. And they don't. And don't. And don't. And don't. And don't. And don't. At what point do attempts at peaceful coexistence become self-immolation? Enough is enough. They benefit from our efforts, even if it means violating the law, and yet we sit idly by while they give back nothing. They seem to like their set of rules. So let's play by them. The devil can cite scripture, to his end.
Unfortunately, many others seem to agree with you, and they're serious.
:)
I don't think a video card company is going to find some great, hidden knowledge in "bttv.c". I'm sure their programmers could produce something very similar in no time at all.
Given the choice between copying a little code illegally but alienating the community, or writing that same bit of code themselves, like usual, I think I know what they would have picked.
So why did NVIDIA do it? Because it was a mistake. Read the article again, read how the parties involved are taking it, (rather well, it seems) and cool off, guys.
Every time a new company comes along trying to use Linux in their business model, (Caldera, Corel, SGI, NVIDIA, etc...) I get anxious about it. I think to myself, "This time, we're going to have a GPL court case, there's no way this big nasty company will ever understand or respect what the community does"...
And so far I've been wrong. In this case, I like having these big companies prove me wrong and show that they really do get it, they're part of this movement too. And what do we get out of it? Better network integration tools, friendlier distributions, perhaps another journaling filesystem, fault tolerance, better multiprocessor support... and now 3D graphics drivers. Sounds good to me.
Give them time. Either they'll come around, or I'll be buying a Voodoo card soon.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
They're making a reasonable effort to cease their improper distribution of unlicensed/copyrighted code. If "their timetable" is such that you can demonstrate that they are acting in bad faith or are otherwise trying to hold out and continue distributing these drivers illegally, then you have grounds to bitch.
But they're not. They have to do a review of their code, see if there's anything else they've missed, take out the GPL'ed part(s) and replace them with stuff of their own. Then they have to run it through a quality assurance process to be sure the damn thing actually compiles and runs. These things aren't done overnight. They have no reason to pull a few all-nighters just to appease the more zealous GPL folks. They're making a "reasonable effort" (which is a legal term) and are acting in good faith to rectify an accidental copyright/distribution infringement.
There is no way you are going to win a court case on these grounds (thank God).
The courts have pretty much declined to provide a threshhold based on percentages. For instance, the Nation excerpted 300 words from Gerald Ford's soon to be published memoir, A Time to Heal concerning, among other things, his pardon of Richard Nixon, yet was found to have infringed on Harper and Row's copyright interest. (Harper and Row vs Nation 471 US 539), and that its publication did not constitute fair use. ( copy of the decision is available at Jurisline.com Of course, in this instance, the court used the "effect on the market" test (" More important, to negate fair use one need only show that if the challenged use "should become widespread, it would adversely affect the potential market for the copyrighted work.") which is not easily applied to Free Software.
While the article was ok, the huge discussion is what got really ridiculous. The kernel module in question comes with source, nvidia's error was not to honor Ralph's code in their accompaigning license. Expect them to either honor Ralph's copyright, or to provide their own memory code.
Here is the original answer from nvidia's Tony Bennett:
This was an oversight. We have no intention of
changing the rights to
your code. This should be obvious based on the
attribution.
Its a bug and we'll fix it.
--tony
And the code in question is (compared to the matter) rather easy - it is absurd to believe it was stolen.
Unless I miss my guess, that was a decent attempt at sardonic humor. Add a :-) to the end of what was said and reread.
Public Domain grants users some rights that BSDL doesn't. For example BSDL specifically disclaims any warranty, and makes a big deal out of it. "Public Domain" does not. So if you PD some software, and it doesn't work you stand a large chance of being sued, and a larger chance of being found liable. In my opinion a very small chance either way, but why take the risk?
Now in my opinion the original author who put his code under the BSDL because he figured he couldn't prevent violations is giving up. Personally I would have MPL'ed it and put an attachment on saying "there is a flat $100 fee to gain commercial license to any or all of this code". Most companies would rather pay $100 for something then steal.
That's not to say that people that put things under the BSDL under the belief that that license does the most good are wrong. If you BSDL something because you think it is good solid code, and you would rather see it used as the basis of a commercial work then a buggy chunk of crap, and have no desire to be payed (directly at least) for the code, then the BSDL is fine.
If you think the path to better software (or whatever it is you want) is better served by the GPL, or the MPL, well go for it. I'm kind of fond of the MPL myself, especially the bit about patents (it would be nice if a future GPL would adopt that section).
No, that is what the "Lesser GPL" (formerly Library GPL) does. The (greater?) GPL both keeps improvements free, and prevents most use in non-open software (in fact, not just non-open, but non-GPL).
You can not use GPL'ed code in a open source project that uses a non-GPL license. It's the same for MPL'ed code too. Or to be a bit more accurate, you can't use GPL/MPL'ed code as anything other then a distinct program. I could have a non-GPL'ed juke box that uses a GPL'ed mp3 player if I pipe my songs to it. If I want to link it in (so I can fast forward and rewind) I'm out of luck with a GPL'ed MP3 player.
If that is the intent of the author of the GPL code, then all is well with the world. After all it is their work, and they have some rights over how it should be used. If it was the intent of the author that GPLing the code allows almost unrestricted sharing, then they have made a grave mistake. They should have used a different license, like the LGPL. Or put in an escape clause for integration by other Open Source software.
What makes you think money is the only kind of damage? If I claim an Arthor Clark short story is mine when I read it to friends, it damages him. He does not get the gain in reputation his work has earned him. If I were to call someone else a wife beater, there would be no money involved, but there would be damages (their reputation, and possably my face just after they punch me).
If you break into my home and steal my VCR, and yet leave me $200 (the purchase price) there is no monatary damage, yet it leaves me with a feeling of insecurity. You could break in and maybe not leave money. Or take a life rather then properity next time.
Damages are not just money.
A lawyer would be able to convince a jury. Easy.
Now whether a lawyer would be able to convince a jury that this wasn't an honest mistake, or that 200 lines of stolen code in a 10,000 project is a super-huge deal, well, I don't know about that.
I would rather have the GPL tested against a violation that is clearly not a mistake, and is clearly a large chunk of code. And best of all, on a clearly wealthy and unrepentent violator, since US juries seem to wack them the hardest.
Well, if the offender was going to BSDL, or MPL their code, they would probbably realise that it would be examined by people who knew the borrowed code was GPLed, and not have made the "mistake".
In fact they would almost certonally understand the "rules" and send mail to the orignal author saying "I'm doing a BSDL'ed project, can I re-release some of your code from foo.c under the BSDL?".
Of corse the original author is free to say "no, I don't want anyone to take it from your code and slap it into Windows NT". So, they could be mostly outta-luck.
They could BSDL their code except for the foo.c code which remains under GPL. Or they could re-write it. Lots of OSS is written for the fun of writing, so maybe they woulnd't even want to borrow from foo.c, they might want to write a better foo.c, and mail the GPL'ed code author "Too bad you wouldn't let us re-licence that code, but here is another better version we wrot from scratch, feel free to ship it with your code".
If they went and violated the GPL anyway, I expect they would have gotten the same polite treatment nVidia got. Probbably.
Way to handle the story. And, both sides of the story. That's two more than Wired. ;)
They must really think we are naive.
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The author claimed to be able to spot code generated by his compiler because the compiler left fingerprints of this nature in the code it generated. I thought that was pretty ingenious at the time.
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
If the police pull someone over and there's a bag of crack on the car drivers seat, isn't that enough justification for them to search the trunk too?
If you've been robbed, and you have proof positive that the man down the street took one of your possessions, can you get a warrant for the police to search their house for the rest of your stuff?
Frankly, I'd like to see a few developers allowed by court order to go through the closed source Nvidia drivers at this point; after the obfuscated source drivers a while back I don't trust them as a company at all. A couple hundred lines of perl to pull out whitespace and find the longest matching substrings between two sets of text files, and maybe hours runtime to compare NVidia's drivers to the Linux kernel, Mesa, and Utah GLX (are these GPLed?) drivers...
I'd wager money that there are more violations where we can't see them, and where they'll never be fixed, because Nvidia won't give a damn until they're caught.
The Creative OSS drivers are crippled in features compared to their closed source counterparts. I like what CL did, but in all honesty they're kind of half-assing the effort ostensibly to entice potential customers for whom open drivers is a selling point w/o a full committment of resources.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Maybe I'm missing the humor/irony here, but, are you serious?. What's the point of even having IP rights if you can't ensure the sanctity of your own privacy? I really am shocked to see such an Orwellian notion appear in a serious vein - maybe what people say about "creeping despotism" isn't that far off.
Personally, I'd chuck my IP rights out the window long before I let a keystroke-by-keystroke log of everyone thing I do be made.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Very nice thread we have here. It will scare off every company that ever considered using GPLed code.
No, it will scare off every company that ever considered using GPLed code in a closed-source product. Which is what we want.
I fail to see how it would have any other adverse effects.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Bravo!
Now WTF are you going to do? I'm all for playing tough, I just don't see a way how. Boycotting Nvidia is a pretty symbolic gesture, but financially pointless.
Technically, the programmers could sue for copyright violation and win. Money. Maybe a lot. But they're not going to. They probably can't afford it.
I share your feelings, but what pisses me off most is what hypocrites they are about it. You are 100% correct about what would happen it we ripped off their code. And if there's one thing I hate, it's hypocrites who get away with it.
But what can we do?
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Ha! Hardly. My question to you is, we who? Do you want to pay legal fees for this case. Is it even within your rights to pursue litigation. After all, it wasn't your copyright that was violated, it was whoever wrote bttv.c. The only means of recourse here is to sue, but no one wants to because it costs more money than "we," whoever that it, has.
/completely/ untested in the legal realm, didn't you? There has never been, to my knowledge, a case where a judge or jury actually used the GPL license to determine a case. Never! Despite it's total pervasiveness, trendiness, etc., despite the fact that literally thousands of apps are now distributed under the GPL/LGPL, despite the fact that multi-billion dollar coporations rely on the open nature of the GPL for their revenue models, we really have only vague premonitions as to if the GPL is actually binding or not.
An inherent problem with the distributed nature of open source software development is aggressively defending IP rights. I have yet to see a viable solution to this problem yet. Although the author of the story lauded Nvidia's action, IMO it's total bullshit. As another poster astutely remarked, if "we" had ripped off their source code, they'd bury us in cease-and-decists, petition our ISPs to yank the offending code and delete our accounts, and maybe, if we're lucky, let us off at that, assuming there was no profit made from their work.
Yet all they get is a minor slap on the wrist. Clearly, a lawsuit would be a very smart option, not only to leverage them into open their drivers, but to set some sort of legal precedent for the GPL.
Oh that's right, you did realize that the GPL is
I'd really like to see this thing tested on, esp. on such a clear cut case as this. Trouble is, I can't afford it. Neither can anyone. So it never happens.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
But no one would. Admit it. Technically, Amazon.com has been boycotted by the same community who would boycott Nvidia, for almost a year now (because of their use of software patents). They had over $500 million in revenues this year. It's easy to sit around and be firebrands and scream "screw the man!" but all of five people would actually carry it out. Amazon.com is too convenient to use, so everyone still does.
As much as I hate to say it, Nvidia has by far the hottest 3D hardware on the market. Their new chip can do full screen antialiasing, which no one can do. Also, it destroys 3dfx's competitor hands down. There are too many people here (and yes, I am one of them) who care more about their FPS in Quake 3 than a protest against Nvidia. I don't think a boycott would do anything.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I'm not saying that the GPL is worthless, or even anything close. For what it's worth, I think it's a pretty bulletproof document - I've literally spent hours pontificating ways out of it and couldn't think of a one. But it does seem a little odd that something being hailed as no less than the Magna Carta of IP freedom and this massive instrument of techno-philsophical change really is virgin.
I'm not implying that it's worthless w/o someone suing, but I think I and many others think setting some sort of precedent here is crucial. If anything, it would sure would make it easier to prevent violations - if Nvidia had known that, in 1998, a judge totally reamed Joe Schmoe for violating GPL, perhaps they'd think twice about stealing someone else's code and then using it to fill their own coffers.
I personally wish someone would sue their balls off. Sure, they're cool for distributing Linux drivers and all, but you know - know - that if you stole their code, there would be legal hell to pay by them. That they are getting off so easy really bothers me.
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I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
475th post! Dammit, I used to defend Nvidia, giving them the benefit of the doubt. But this is absolutely ridiculous.
1) They have code out there violating a license agreement. Take it down. Now. Or open up the rest of the code to bring it in compliance with the license. Saying "oops sorry we'll fix that next version" is absurd.
2) The notion that it was an "accident" is bullshit, pure and simple. How do you "accidentally" copy someone else's code? It takes a determined act to go find a software package, untar it, look through it, understand it, then COPY IT, paste it into your code, and compile it. Accident, my ass.
3) The fact that they flatly refuse to open up their source, but are more than happy to steal OTHER people's code, is indefensible.
I will not support this type of behavior. My crusty old TNT is the last Nvidia card I buy, until they get a collective clue.
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In order to compile a binary driver into the kernel you need a public interface between the kernel and the binary. That public interface is a header file written in C.
I think it is pretty certain that Ralph Metzer was looking at the header file and got a strong sense of deva vu...
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
In order to make the source open they have to give out good specs. From those specs their competitors can try to figure out how they produce their hardware. And that is what they don't want to have happen.
Does it really work like that? Possibly. Probably not. But that is the main reason given for not open sourcing drivers.
Of course the risk that they have to run is that someone will go out and reverse engineer their hardware. In not a few cases companies have had that happen with the result that dirty laundry they wanted to keep secret has been publically aired anyways. (eg The "secure" protocol just got reversed and turned out to be junk.) Which as often as not is another reason that they don't let people know how their stuff works. They don't want people to know how bad it is.
Cheers,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
>>Oh that's right, you did realize that the GPL /completely/ untested in the legal realm,
>>is
>>didn't you?
Lots of specific contracts haven't been sued over,
but that does not make them "/completely/" untested. The lease on my townhouse was written
by my landlord, and hasn't been tested in court.
Does that get me out of paying my rent?
The agreement by the local welder that he will fix
my muffler for $55.00 hasn't been tested in court either.
There are LOTS of contracts out there that are legally binding, regardless of the fact that they
haven't been sued over. If the system is such that in order for a license to be valid, someone must first be raked over the coals by it, that's
news to me.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
On the down side, Nvidia has a binary that should have its source released. All of it, if I recall the GPL correctly. And there isn't any indication that this will happen. I don't even see any mention that Nvidia will be withdrawing the binary from distribution. "as soon as possible doesn't imply "let me just call the webmaster and have that file deleted".
I assume that they want to keep their drivers closed source out of some concern for trade secrets, or other similar corporate logic. As I interpret the GPL, they can't consider that code a trade secret any longer; some of it is GPL, and that's a virus of some potency.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Don't forget that these drivers were released merely a week ago, catching everyone by surprise. I would expect that a couple of people at NVIDIA spent a couple of very hectic days preparing for this.
It wouldn't surprise me if this code was only there for the internal beta, to be distributed only to people who have NDAs with NVIDIA. The developer might have grabbed the code just to get the beta working, planning to rewrite it before the drivers went out to the general public.
Mistake? Yeah. Worth hate-mail? No. Give the company the chance to do the right thing. They've turned things around in just two weeks (from where I sit, and I have a bit of a perspective on this), so I'm willing to be patient. (Yes, I'll update the page in my .sig in the next day or two, too.)
--
how to invest, a novice's guide
Secondly:
It is my steadfast opinion that, if nVidia stole code from a GPLed module, they be required to immediately remove either the module, or the offending code, or the release the full and complete source of the module. Anything less is simply unacceptable, according to the terms of the license.
That being said, of course, they could always write a function which calls a separate trivial library which contains the code in question, and release the trivial library and it's source code. I reckon that's one way to satisfy (around?) the letter of the GPL.
Well, that's my soapbox for the day
Matthew Vanecek For 93 million miles, there is nothing between the sun and my shadow except me. I'm always getting i
You're quite right. Why are they being left off so easily? After all, since the only thing which allowed them to redistribute the GPL'd code was their acceptance of the GPL, we can conclude that by distributing they accepted it. The people with the code should start asking for their source.
What sort of answer is "we copied some code out of a GPL'd program by accident". Give me a break! You have to be genuinely stupid to not know that linux is released under the GPL. And you also have to be genuinely stupid not to know that copyright exists. (both of these statements are made within the context of being a software developer in the US, etc.)
So my question is, what are the best tools to use to decompile code? I think that I'd like to decompile their "public domain" drivers and then post the decompiled source. recomendations?
Oh, and if it turns out that I wasn't right that they're public domain, I'll take them down in a few weeks.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
No, handling it by fulfilling their legal obligations and releasing source is the best way. What they're doing now is absurd. What they're doing now is the direct equivalent of stealing and then promising to give it back and expecting there to be no consequences. If you believe that copyright is worth anything, this whole situation is completely wrong.
Them simply removing the code is not very productive. It at least will mean that they don't violate the GPL (That we know of) any more in the future past not releasing source for their GPL-derrived work. What about the fact that they didn't release source? Does it really work that I can copy office2000 and the only thing that happens if I get caught is that I have to delete it?
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
You said it much better than I could. nVidia hasn't contributed anything worth while to the open source community, and I really wish that the copyright holders would play hardball here. I'll donate money to the legal offense fund.
Besides, how exactly does one accidentally borrow code? Did they confuse the linux bttv driver with their in-house bttv driver?
I'm with you. Fuck them to hell and back.
Sometime soon, the kernel people really should say, "As of version x.y.z, no more binary-only kernel modules will be permitted." It's not like linux needs binary-only kernel modules any more.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
I'm posting this to remind folks of _why_ nvidia has no released their drivers under the GPL. It has almost nothing to do with their internal decisions, and everything to do with technology they licensed for their AGP interface. Because of this license, they can not release the core of their drivers-its a sad fact, and one that folks like Carmack have commented on more than once. No amount of boycotting and whining will change this one iota, because nvidia can't do much about it (they opensource, and promptly the guys the licensed the AGP tech from will sue them for loss of income). This was pointed out several weeks ago, but seems to have been forgotten.
Guess what, kids -- It is the responsibility of the original author to enforce the conditions laid out in the GPL. Not Slashdot, not the FSF, and not the GNU Project. Lets suppose Evil Company X steals your code...do you have the resources in place to defend the GPL yourself? There will probably be a day in the not-too-distant future when a company simply decides to muscle its way past the GPL and reap the harvest of yours, and everyone else's work for their own benefit.
Quoting from the GNU Project's own document on how to deal with possible GPL violations:
"The copyright holder is the one who is legally authorized to take action to enforce the License."
Read: No income, no money. No money, no lawyer. No layer, no lawsuit. No lawsuit, no safety. No safety, no Linux. Be careful what you release, folks..You may not be able to prevent someone from making money off your work.
Bowie J. Poag
Bowie J. Poag
How do you 'accidentally' steal GPL'd code? I find it really hard to believe that the person who took the code had no idea of the legal ramifications of it. To be quite honest, I think they knew EXACTLY what they were doing. But they did it anyways.
I'm not trying to troll here, but this really pisses me off. And I don't understand how people can be so blase about it. The fact is, they used GPL'd code in a closed source module. But instead of doing something about it, we're kissing their ass in the hopes that they'll one day update their Linux drivers so they aren't 5 years behind the Windows ones.
Face it, Nvidia is using the Linux community, and doesn't give two shits about us. And I would not be surprised if they aren't the only company that does things like this to cut down development costs.
Anyways, I'm ranting like hell, but I am pissed. They are breaking the law, but instead of doing something, we're just giving them a slap on the wrist. So at this point, Nvidia and every other company out there has been given the (correct?) indication that if they illegally use GPL'd code, they can just say "oh we're sorry, we'll fix it in a few weeks", and nothing will happen.
If we're going to be like this, might as well relicense all GPL'd code under the BSD license. Thats basically what we're allowing corporations to treat it as.
Thats enough of my ranting.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
Can any code be truly copyrighted?
Code is copyrighted in the sense that no one can copy your code letter for letter. Anyone can look at your code and get ideas from your code, just as science fiction writers can "steal" ideas from books they read. "Copyright" in the sense that you mean - where no one else can use your ideas - is actually a patent.
> Applying this to source-code would be something harder, as high-level languages abstract a long way away.
As the most basic precaution, you should include a copyright string somewhere in your program text, and "use" it in some way that will prevent a compiler from optimizing it away.
Unfortunately, this will be pretty easy for "them" to catch, though it does require them to actually read the code (as they apparently neglected to do in the Perens case a few weeks back).
Beyond that, I'm reluctant to suggest obfuscation for an OSS project, but I don't see any other way to make it difficult for someone to find and delete your copyright string.
Perhaps you could add a "spare" error message that looks plausible to anyone reading the code, but is never actually emitted by any error. If you used sufficiently idiosyncratic terms or phrasing for such a message, you might be able to build a case on that basis.
The other problem is, once you've revealed the evidence that proves that someone has hijacked your code, what's to prevent them form deleting just that part and then saying they re-wrote the code from scratch? Perhaps you should include two identification strings in your code: one for making a polite reminder that your code is GPL'd, the other for a court case if they take the easy way out.
Of course, if someone does find and delete an actual copyright string, they will be in a heap of trouble if they ever get caught out at it.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
So. I'm impressed.. they will fix the problem. All nice and polite.. and it's not that big a deal.. however...
They admit they are in violation, yet are still distributing the code in violation from their site? This should stop immediately until the problem is fixed, no? I mean, they are *NOT* allowed to distribute it, and neither is anybody else.
Of course.... and this might be a bit silly.. but... if it's just some memory management routines... is the nvidia driver a 'derivitave' work, or does it just use a tiny bit of code from some GPL code? Think about it.. if it's not really a derivitave work... the GPL may not apply.
Well, it's good to see they will be fixing the problem (and so they should), but they're only fixing it because they've been caught, it seems.
They claim to have copied the code "without knowing it was GPL". What situations are there where you can just cut and paste some code, and use it without thinking about the permission to use it? Not many. They surely can't have been mistaken into believing it was in-house code, and since they're going to the trouble of developing for Linux, they must have at least heard of licenses and the issues surrounding them.
This is pretty poor in my book.
The post you replied to seemed to be saying "We can't guard our GPL'd software without these facist measures which are too horible to contemplate, so we can't guard it." not "We need to implement these facist policies."
Okay, I am little confused here, so I hope that Bruce Perens or someone who understands the issue a little bit better than me can clarify, but...
Section 2, Part B of the GPL reads:
b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
If they incorporated GPL code into their driver, then distributed, then the rest of the driver is automatically under the GPL, correct? That is, since GPL is infectious, the entire driver is then supposed to be released under the GPL. That is the agreement that one signs when you use GPL'ed code in your software.
So, since the driver is infected, doesn't this mean that we can demand the source code to the nVidia driver? It seems to me that redistributing modified GPL code means that you agree to the original GPL.
It just seems to me that pulling the driver and redistributing is not enough. Once it is out there, they are bound by the terms of the GPL, and should have to give us the source code to the Beta that they released. This is similar to the issue with Be and Bruce several weeks ago - just fixing the problem doesn't exempt them from the past violation and the old terms still apply.
Does anyone else see this the way that I do?
You're either a troll or an idiot, which is it?
--
+&x
Not only should they be required to remove the code in the next release if they want to keep it closed, but they should have to lisence the current one under the GPL
I agree, take the fsckers to court. Let's see if the GPL has teeth.
I think it would be a good way to branch the software. They can release a new version without the code, but the one that's out there *should* be open. Maybe we could have a contest in a year or so and see who has the better code (one company vs. the rest of the world, hehe)?
Note to nvidia: I am your core market, the way you handle this situation will determine what I think of your company for years to come. Act accordingly. Also note, I had a v3 blow up a week ago, and am currently in the market looking for a replacement.
--
+&x
I am very concerned that we are only catching a few percent of the real problem - just the tip of the iceberg.
Anybody reverse engineer M$'s networking code recently? (just asking...)
Just wondering because I remember a Bob Young interview a while back during the RH roadshow. He asked a group of execs how many of their IT depts were mandated to use Linux. No hands. He asks how many thought that Linux was running somewhere on their networks. All hands. Now ask them how many of their core products contain GPL'ed code. How fast can you count blank stares?
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+&x
This is a really interesting idea, but I believe the GPL (or any license, for that matter) voids this sort of use. Most copyrighted material (i.e., !code) isn't licensed, so there's no problem. It had never really occurred to me though, so I'm not sure. I do know that there are restrictions on what you can do with material under fair use, and in all likelihood they would prevent people from using it a means to 'steal' code.
Two and three are pretty much the same question, and in both cases I'd say no. I could take a book from the library, scan it, change the main characters name to 'Bob', and claim it's an original work, but I doubt many people would show up in court for the book signing.
Absolutely. Algorithms can be described by code but are not code any more than the number 4 is the numeral '4'. The solution to this 'problem' is to patent algorithms, which is, IMO, insane, but I'm not so sure the Patent Office would agree.
-jcl
But there'd be very little incentive for a company to lock up its code, if the binary can be freely distributed. A monopoly on source code is not actually all that useful if you can't control the binary. (I'm presuming that more insidious methods of copy protection, such as compiling against a particular processor serial number, would be illegal under fair trade laws or whatever). And if your product is so vital that binary copies aren't good enough to prevent you having a good monopoly (say windows), large companies would reverse engineer and clone your program bit by bit, safe in the knowledge that it would be legal. (I'm also assuming that a deliberately obfuscating APIs would be explicitly illegal for companies with high market share, under antitrust law, which is a bit of a change from today).
In a world where this sort of copying and reverse-engineering/cloning was legal and normal, people would be much more wary of uncloned closed-source software because buying into a monopoly market is usually a bad idea unless you have no choice.
It might take a few years before everyone recalculated their enlightened self-interest, but eventually open-source would become the norm and (in most cases) binary-only distribution would be regarded as a possible sign that the vendor was out to con you.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
There's no such thing as "efficient". There's only "efficient in a certain environment". Common law may be great for things like murder, where the issue hasn't altered for centuries. However it has not had chance to adapt to this fairly new environment where the cost of distributing information is nearly zero.
IANAS. The problem with ideas is that they're often dependent on lots of other ideas to be useful. This particularly applies to software. If I have an idea which relies on 6 other patented ideas, then there is no way I can use my idea without collaborating with all six patent holders. If someone wants to market a replacement for my idea, they also have to replace the functionality of the six other ideas I drew on.
This creates enormous barriers to entry into the market for ideas, and so makes monopoly control very likely. If you wanted to market a replacement for Recycle Bin for Windows, you'd have to recreate the whole of the rest of the OS. A reasonably low barrier to entry is a fundamental axiom needed for free market economics to work. If you don't ensure that the barrier is low, you can kiss goodbye to all the efficiency optimisation which the free market performs.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
However, given that the GPL is simply one of a number of different licences the author(s) could issue, I can see a case for a varient of the GPL that gives the developers a choice:
- obey the restrictions and conditions of the GPL, and not just after you get caught but at the point you release the software, or
- Pay a "standard usage fee" to the FSF, in trust to be split between the authors / donated to charity as seems reasonable, in the following amounts; $5000us, an immediate payment, and 10% of the sales price of the software, or if the software is supplied bundled with other products (hardware or software) 5% of the sale price of the bundle, whichever is higher.
Being caught in violation of the GPL after the software has been available should automatically disqualify the company from reverting to the GPL for units already shipped and paid for, unless the FSF or the authors are happy it was a genuine mistake and the remedial action the company has taken is adequate.Given this, I doubt any company would be complacent about allowing OSS routines to be shipped in their products without checking with a lawyer first.....
--
-=DaveHowe=-
Reading the relevant section of the copyright law, I notice that the winner of a lawsuit is entitled to recover attorney's fees, and damages of at least $750 per copy (up to $20000 a copy).
It seems to me that if the owner of the infringed works so desired, he could easily strongarm nVidia into opening their drivers; A lawsuit could end up being extremely costly for nVidia, since presumably several thousand people have downloaded the drivers.
I also notice that under the criminal section of the copyright law, if nVidia loses a lawsuit, they are subject to forfeiture of anything used in the copyright violation. This would probably include all servers and workstations, networking equipment, etc. -- even more reason for them to settle.
It is the purpose of the GPL to increase the amount of Free Software. The only reason I can think of NOT to make nVidia open the driver is that it would make other companies look real hard before looking at adopting Free Software. However, this will only affect people planning to redistribute free software, so I wouldn't think it would be so big an issue.
I think the idea is that the FSF is against the ownership of IP, and for information being free, and all that. However, there are copyrights, and the GPL does what it can to undermine the copyright system from within. Not only does it guarantee that the original GPL'd code is 'free' (as would placing it in the public domain), it also exerts a pressure towards freeness on other code, such as derivitives of the original, and separate programmes that wish to 'borrow' from the original.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
Dammit, that's not the point of the GPL. The point of the GPL is to enforce the openness of code. RedHat is, indeed, making money off GPL code, and it's not against the letter or the spirit of the GPL. More power to them!
You don't use the GPL in order to restrict people from making money off your work. You do it in order to see that any improvements other people make to your code are also open.
Then why not just make it public domain?
Heh, me too - except my final is in electrical engineering.
-Matthead
Thanks for expanding on my point.
So, it sux. Thanks for nothing, Nvidia.
Sigged!
Yep, GPL may eventually be honored, but how many Linux users bought a GeForce256-based graphics card, just because they saw a Linux driver coming up?
But that's not my point. The point is that they will release a closed-source driver. That means, if you use Linux or Windoze, you'll be OK, but you're fucked if you use anything else. That means, Nvidia goes bust, noone can develope new drivers for your card. That means, no development contribution possible, by the X community.
The spirit of OSS is violated, even if the GPL is not.
Sigged!
"if commercial code is closed-source, how can you spot stolen noncompliant code?"
:-)
When NT/Win2k/9x becomes stable
Sorry, a very cheap shot there. I actually have no problems with MS myself. I just couldn't resist that little quip. In no way did I mean this as a credible argument against MS's software.
I suggest we organize our own paramilitary organization! Volunteers meet at my house Monday!
Wait . . . isn't the signup for the 2nd Diablo II beta on Monday? TUESDAY then!
--
The shareholder is always right.
. . .and this is yet another reason (no legal action against nVidia) to bolster that opinion.
Listen to me Bruce. Get a VC friend of yours to set up a (very very small) startup company to compete with VALinux. Ask them to hire an engineer that intentionaly and knowingly violates the GPL repeatedly and take them to court. Think of it as an Alpha test for the GPL. Test it. Please. We beg you.
___
Matrox seems to have been consistently clueful about the Open Source community. 3dfx seems to have come around in recent years. I'll continue to buy my hardware from the company that seems to be the most clued in at the time I'm buying. Last time around it was Matrox. Next time around... who knows?
Last time Nvidia open sourced a driver, they did so in a manner that made it all but unmaintainable (See the various comments from the Utah GLX developers for more on this.) I was considering several cards earlier this year, when I bought my Matrox G400 Max. I passed on Nvidia based on comments from the GLX developers. I passed on 3dfx because they'd been routinely schizophrenic on open source in recent times. I bought the Matrox because they've been consistently releasing needed information to open source developers for quite some time.
I vote with my wallet and I can smell corporate bullshit a mile away. Actions speak much louder than any lies out of marketing, and don't think for a second that the community won't notice what you're doing. If we don't like your deeds, we won't buy your stuff. So maybe it's time for your marketroids to re-evaluate the environment and actually start talking TO us, not AT us.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A possible angle on this incident would be to take the moral high ground, as visibly as can be managed. Perhaps there is the slight possibility that closed source software developers who are a bit edgy about open source might be calmed a bit. While revenge is sweet for the short term, making open source philosophy appear a bit more friendly may see better returns over time
I used to work at Microsoft, and from the code I saw, there was NO GPLd code being used. Their networking code is largely based on BSD code, which has a more lenient license, as I'm sure you are aware.
Microsoft plays hardball business-wise, but they are also one of the most scrutinized corporations. If some coder decided to use GPL'd code for one of Microsoft's closed products, it is fair to say that he or she probably wouldn't be working there for long.
Best regards,
SEAL
This brings up the entire - what is copyright anyway ?? question.
Well, copyright identifies a piece of work as yours. Your way of saying/writing/painting something. It is NOT your ideas or methods that are copyrighted - there is the patent system for that. That is why software barons are so hip on anti-reverse engineering clauses in EULAs. Copyright is NOT about intellectual property. It is about identity. It is totally unclear to me how software barons could think that you would agree to treat their copyright like a patent in order to use it. It is kind of ridiculous.
If you want to protect your methodology, patent it. If you don't, there is nothing to keep people from copying it. And there is really nothing to keep someone else from using GPLd code as a code base and rewriting the routines. Only the form of expression is protected - NOT any intellectual property. Methods are specifically NOT protected in US Copyright law.
I think that the real situation is that they use the code and 'forget about it' until they get picked up, and then conviently apologise and put on a good show for the public.
The real question though, is how much more of this is there going on that we don't see or hear about?
Better to stay silent, and let people think you're an idiot than to open your mouth and remove all doubt
You have the resources and the balls? Then go sue them! IANAL, but don't they have a legal obligation to give the complete source code, under the GPL, to every person who downloaded the binaries? So go download the binaries if you haven't already, and then demand the source code! If you get it, send me a copy. If you don't, sue their asses off, and set a precedent. I'm sure many of us /.ers would be willing to donate some money to the offense fund.
------
You know what? You're right. I feel like e-mailing nVidia Nick right now and demanding the source code which they have a legal obligation to give me. Hell, I wonder if I could sue them myself... too bad I don't have the resources.
------
Not to rain in on your parade(or be rude doing so), but what does the FSF have to do with it? Perhaps the GPL license itself should be amended to basically say "if you violate the GPL by including GPLed code in a binary only format, the whole module must be opened and put under the GPL license also, or the GPLed code removed and the original author compensated for however much profit was gained by using his code. I can see a few problems with my idea but they could probably be worked out. They provide an incentive for companies who want to use GPLed code to open their source also or not even bother(and it might even be enough deterrent to make developers check before they "accidentally" use GPL code. How many people release open source code under a non-GPL license anyways? I know people do but it couldn't be many. Whoever used the code by "accident" must've been on a super-caffine buzz or something.) In addition, it would almost be like a "licensing virus" automatically spreading GPL into any program that accidentally uses GPLed code(much like people who unknowingly run a virus). Wouldn't it be funny as hell if Microsoft accidentally used GPLed code in windows and were forced to open source the whole damn thing. I can see the news stories... Judge Jackson saying "I'm really going to enjoy doing this. Open it up or scrap it, no, actually open source it, period."
A comapny is very different from individuals, if fact I'm willing to bet that many of the developers at NVidia would want to open source the drivers(maybe even "accidentally" included the code in hopes it would be pried open, who knows.) But my point is that a company will ALWAYS go where the money is(or at least where it thinks the money is), devoid of emotion and or caring. It's like a dumb animal. When sh*t like this happens the individual developer needs to get inside the companies proverbial head and do what will provoke a response. A slap on the wrist to a "stimulus response" entity means that they will do it again and again(as long as there's money in it) until a concrete block is set up making it very clear that what they did is not an acceptable behavior. I say sue them for as much as they're worth(even though I like their hardware) because there's no other way companies will get the idea that there is no room for negotiation, much the same way they try to do with us. Of course we're not full of hot air like they are when they do it. The example that needs to be set is being honest and not suing for namby pamby.
I really hope that the above paragraph isn't why this post has been moderated up. Here are a few of the reasons why this seems like a stupid idea to me.
- This will definitely be unfairly biased towards big companies since they'll have more chance to have some sort of mandatory coding practices in place than a startup or smaller company.
Basically, this seems like an idea that sounds good on paper until one actually starts to consider implementation details and then it falls apart.Molog
So Linus, what are we doing tonight?
So Linus, what are we going to do tonight?
The same thing we do every night Tux. Try to take over the world!
...cuz it'll only take a couple weeks. it's not like their developers haven't already been tainted by the code.
why shouldn't an open source driver be tainted by nvidia's binaries?
fo all the people who say "give them a break, no one should sue them" just remember how fast their lawyers would flock to your anus if you disassembled or otherwise reverse engineered a single line of their linux driver.
but in closing, i have to say it's up to the FSF and RMS, or the developer. if they say a 2 week violation is okay with them, then i'm all for letting it slide.
sheesh, anyone else notice their $250 MSRP boards are getting marked up to $360+? maybe some of that cold cash could get diverted to open source...oops, i'm dreaming again.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
Right now, Linux isn't the biggest market out there. I want better driver support from hardware manufacturer for Linux, and I also think their drivers should be open source, but I can see how manufacturers wouldn't have Linux on the top of their priority list. So when nVidia do get around to making XFree86 drivers, and accidentally use some GPL'ed code, the Linux users they are aiming to please (at least somewhat) become enraged, and suggest persuing nVidia by whatever means possible if they don't fix the problem immediately.
Now nVidia have clearly put some effort into producing these drivers - and can't open source them due to company policy and licensing restrictions - yet upon release are attacked by Linux users for not producing open source drivers. Then when they accidentally use some GPL'ed code - and agree to resolve the problem as soon as possible - they are attacked again, with posts suggesting they must provide remuneration to the open source community.
Who are nVidia trying to help here? Granted, they are doing so to be able to continue selling nVidia products to Linux users, but if we continue to attack them for everything they do to help, they may give up and stop supporting Linux entirely. They were careless, but are apparently trying to correct that mistake. If they don't within a reasonable amount of time, the open source community would be justified in attacking them, but in the meantime it seems the amount of cynicism here is a bit much.
First of all, I'd like to point out that many people here are acting as if nVidia board members sat around planning ways to screw the GPL.
When it could of been one crappy developer who found themselfs in over his/her/it's head, and just coppied it hoping no one would notice.
Two weeks is a reasonable amount of time to fix the violation. If in fact you could get them in court right now, and won, the judge probably would give them a reasonable time period to fix the problem. Now it would be nice if they would post that it was in violation and that a fix was in progress. In my experience, most Corporation try to go out of there way to adhere to license agreements. Now I would like the corporate goons to relize the full potential of opening there source, but at least the're recognizing we exist.
If they don't comply within 2 weeks, I'd like to see sombody go after them hard core. If you do not aggressivle persue copyright violation, you can loose that copyright.
We have to carefully walk that line between protecting are rights, and not making Corps. afraid of GPL. It's not easy, but many of the battles we will need to fight will be difficult. Both morally and financially.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Ralph Metzler and and Tony Bennett exchanged a few emails, problem solved.
In the CPHack case, there were hearings, spammed supeona, more hearings, etc. Still lots of mirrored sites, lots of bad feelings. And lots of legal bills.
Fight Spammers!
No kidding. People like to take the side of big business by painting GPL as some marauder beating them to their knees. Hardly. And for a company to say "oops" that's is such horse shit.
If I steal Nvidida's chip designs, and make my own video card, do you think they're going to say "well, as long as it was an accident and you promise not to steal from us again. Heck, take a few weeks to get things all figured out and keep selling the stolen chip designs."
If a company can't hire programmers to do their own work, and can't police it's super secret code very well, why the hell should anyone spend money with them? Screw all the crap about "well, they admitted it, so they shouldn't we shoudln't pass judgement on it. It will keep other companies from coming forward." Who reported the violation? Not nVidia.
But, it all comes down to lawyers. Corporations regularly screw over people, break contracts, etc...the GNU folks don't have a PR mouthpiece, don't have $250/hour lawyers. So they're left sit in the dust.
nVidia owes the programmers it stole from a royality, say 20%. That's still not right, but maybe they can end up with a little folding cash in their pockets.
No sig is worth reading.
The point has been made that this violation might not have been completely accidental, and may have been quite a beneficial "mistake" to have made. :-)
On the other hand - people can make mistakes, and open source concepts like GPL are still a new concept to many.
I suspect the way forward might be an undefined period of grace during which companies can claim ignorance and get away with a tut-tut, but soon easing into more and more serious prosecution as the excuse loses its plausibility and GPL becomes more established in the commercial world. Once a few settlements have been made, giving profile to the new work ethic, violators get ruthlessly pursued by people who actually get off their butts and act, rather than just talk like I do
What we need is a automated program that goes around disassembling closed source products and comparing them with libraries of GPLed code.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
They say they will fix it in .. two or three weeks? c'mon NVidia..
I don't understand why some companys just discourage opensource soo much.. 3dfx's drivers are way ahead, and much better, and alot contributing to that is because they are open..
Maybe we wouldn't have to wait months for a NVidia driver if they went open.. Do they care about the customer, or their own neck? If they don't start considering Linux and the customer, they're going to cut their own neck.
-meff
Don't jump on the poor company just because they made a boo-boo. People have been doing one way of business for a long time (closed-source) and they're just beginning to start joining our way of thinking. That does, IMHO, give them a bit of room to screw up.
Applying this to source-code would be something harder, as high-level languages abstract a long way away. However, it is possible that there is some mileage in being able to spot your code by doing this. When you code you have a "style of writing", which, to an extent, is your own and fairly difficult to copy. Filtering out this "coding style" from a binary would be hard, yes, but could it be possible?
Some constructs might be easy to spot (you used a crazy number of "if" statements when a "case" would have been more sensible - but it depends how the compiler optimises). The structure of your functions/procedures (not everyone would choose to sub-divide problems up in the same way you do) might be another way. Your choice of bounds in for loops (do I use i=1;imay optimise your style out, so filtering out this sort of "fingerprint" from machinecode might be tricky (to say the least).
-- Maz
Wondering if there's a research project embedded in that lot...
When someone trips and finds themselves with their head stuck in an unfortunate bodily orifice we help them get it out and get back on their feet. That is how we got where we are today, and that is how we will get even further in the future.
You are wrong. I am sick of people who treat these companies as poor blind little puppies and try to show them the light!
Have you ever argued with a typical corporatist about issues like this? I have, alot. They profess ideals such as "their right to earn profit for their efforts and expenses" and other self-serving mankind-screwing rhetoric. Look at how nVidia has behaved.. they have been feeding us lies, with their promises of embracing Open Source etc. That is not the behaviour an entity that doesn't know better, that's the behaviour of an entity that is one of two things.
Intelligent. They know who we are, they know what we stand for, and they don't like the way it threatens their hip pocket so they seek to squash us. There is no showing them the light, because they know our light as well as we do already.
Mind-bogglingly stupid. They do what they do because they have seen it's what the majority of people do. No amount of rationalizing or leading by example will work with them either. Rationalizing won't work because these people simply do not think. Leading by example will not work because the corporatists are the vast majority, a much more visible example, and they see us as rebels.
Either way, they are our enemies, and they will stay that way, and we have no choice but to fight them. I agree that it would be better to turn them to our side, but simply no amount of our good-will will do that.
Why not just sue them and get it over with?
... personal *interpretations* of the GPL - that's not good enough for a company. How long before the large companies who appear to support Linux (ie. IBM) recognize that their intellectual properties are at severe risk?
It's obvious that they were in violation, but there are many cases which are far more ambiguous. (Specifically, bundling GPL components with a commercial system.)
From my perspective the GPL is about as annoying as software patents. No, this is not a troll. This is the truth; what good is a license which has no legal backing? What good is a license which is ambiguous and frequently abused?
The strongest threats anyone in the GPL community can make are:
1) I'll have a thousand Slashdotters complain until the article rolls off the front page
2) I'll have Stallman send you a stern email telling you that his interpretation doesn't match with your interpretation. Please stop.
3) I'll take you to court (without being able to plead damages, because no money was lost.)
From a company's perspective, how can badly can I abuse a license where no monetary damages occur? Why would I want to become involved in GPL issues without understanding the REAL legal ramifications?
Although there are many people here who have strong *opinions*
So I'll say again it. Will someone please TAKE THE NEXT ABUSER TO COURT and get this whole stupid thing settled.
Don't respond to this, there's no point. Everything about the GPL has been beat to death on this forum and on usenet. Put up or shut up. Go to court.
950
Thank you - this is something that I've been thinking about for a long time. Whenever you create a bit of code, open source OR COMMERCIAL - there is no way whatsoever to make sure that your rights as the copyright holder will not be violated by someone else copying your source code, copying the relevant sections from a disassembled binary, or reverse engineering it and duplicating the functionality.
The dangers to Open Source and Free Software to this are all too obvious and have been amply elaborated upon in other posts, so I will not go into that here. But: imagine your company creates a closed-source tool that, say, processes images. In this, let's say that you have a filter that "textures" an image, using an arbitrary grayscale image to indicate contours. Now, imagine, three months later, you see somebody else come out with a similar product with exactly the same feature. How are you supposed to know whether they disassembled your code or not? How are you supposed to know whether they somehow got hold of a piece of your COPYRIGHTED source, and just stole that?
The only solution I can see is to insist on complete, keystroke-by-keystroke monitoring and logging of the creation of each and every source file, to be made available should a copyright lawsuit arise. These logs would naturally have to be kept whenever implementing a feature identical or similar to one in an already-extant product. And, to prevent companies with legal might to throw around such as Microsoft and Sun saying, "oops, no logs, but our high-priced lawyers will help you figure things out," absence of these logs would automatically put you in violation of copyright. This has to be done - there's no other way to protect our code.
Jaded, Hell. We're not children (most of us anyway). We can see for ourselves how their world works. Until we can make our own we're forced to play in theirs. That given, this is simply reality. Corporations are easily dealt with when you remember that they're just after money. That's actually a good thing; it clarifies situations like this one. nVidia thinks they can steal from us. And why not, from their viewpoint? There's so much effort being made not to look like zealots that they know they'll get away with it, even if they're caught. So why not; hey, it's good for profits. And the only way to stop it is to make it BAD for profits. Simple enough. A no-limit game, if you've the stomach for it. We're showing that we don't; it's all too clear that they do.
What if the offender had been another open source project? If they had used a BSD license instead of the GPL, for instance. Would they have been forced to change to the GPL? Would anyone have cared?
What if NVidia had just used a clever algorithm they found in an open source project?
I'm also confused on the point of how much and of what kind of code can be reused from other projects. Is any amount of cut and paste OK?
After all, the whole benefit of open source is to build on other people's code and learn from it, but licenses like the GPL say "touch it and you've bought it" as far as I can see. Although I'm sure that common sense dictates that things aren't in practice that strict.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Seems kinda funny - after this article, people are all up in arms that we're just slapping nVidia on the wrist, and letting them get away with murder. A few weeks ago when there were one or two articles in succession about GPL violations, when the entire slashdot community jumped on the companys back with hatemail and flaming, people were saying that we need to tone it down so as not to scare any companies away from the great free software weenie roast.
Which is it going to be?
FTR, My personal opinion is that we demand they open the module immediately or face a lawsuit, because legal intimidation seems to be the only language large companies understand.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
If someone violates GPL, the license is void. Since it i s void, normal copyright applies. Which says you are not allowed to copy and distribute. Thus, a programmer is in his/her right to sue a company violating the GPL license of his/her code for copyright infrigement. Perheaps someone should set up a fund to help those programmers get layers. Such a fund would most probably peven have profit! The big companies allways sue us private persons for violation of their copyright or licenses. We should do the same when they violates our copyright and our licenses!
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Well, this is yet another win for the GPL - it looks like it's holding together well as more commercial organizations used GPLed software.
As for NVIDIA choosing closed-source development for their drivers, I have a feeling that they will come around eventually. Creative was not going to release SBLive! drivers as open source, but that changed rather rapidly when they realized that they could harness Open Source development to reduce development costs and keep up with the enternally evolving Linux kernel.
If NVIDIA wants to really compete in the Linux marketplace, then the GPL is a powerful enticement. Granted, they may not want to release their latest and greatest drivers quite yet, but it may be in their best interest to do so eventually. Look at how 3dfx makes generally lower-quality hardware (although I use a 3dfx card in my own box) but they've done a great job of capturing the Linux market with quality open-source drivers. Even though I think 3dfx doesn't have the advanced technology of NVIDIA's chips, I am more inclined to buy their products for my Linux box because of their support of the GPL. While people like myself are the minority, we're very vocal about these things.
At least NVIDIA is stepping in the right direction. I can understand their hesitancy to go the Open Source route, but I think that once they see that it will be a positive thing to their bottom line they'll come about in good time. As the article says, be polite about these things and let the power of Open Source speak for itself.
The AC is correct....that for the particular module the screw up happened, by the GPL, they SHOULD release the source. The only way that will happen is of the OWNER of the code in question wants to make a legal matter of it.
This, yet again, proves why the BSD licence is best for corporations. Companies can develop on BSD, take what code they want and incorporate it into their products. With BSD, they get a linux-binary compatible enviroment to QC the products they ship. (Some people are confused on this point. Because BSD doesn't use the linux kernel, they don't believe it can run Linux binaries. Using BSD/SCO/Solaris as a QC platform for "Linux binaries" goes farther than any other method of proving 'linux compatibility' with the absence of a functional LSB)
And, at some future date...when they decide that OpenSource isn't a bad thing then they can participate with a BSD-esque, GPL or some other model.
All the tactic of 'The appropriate fix (under the GPL) is to release the source code.' will do is push companies AWAY from OpenSource.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
Is it possible to write proprietary code that isn't a direct copy of GPL'ed code, but instead samples it and distorts it? For example, could proprietary code be "inspired" by the algorithms and data structures in a GPL'ed piece of code, but be completely original. Could it simply be the same code, but with replaced variable names, reordered assignments, etc.?
At least, if you do take them to court, you won't get anything out of them.
/. would be in the middle of a very messy legal battle over their copyright violations with the Hellmouth book.
The case law is quite clear on this: If you violate someone's copyright unintentionally (eg, you think the material is in the public domain), you can be ordered to stop, but no punitive damages will be awarded. Which is, of course, exactly what nVidia is already doing.
We should all be glad for this anyway -- if punitive damages could be awarded for good faith copyright violations,
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
The above points amd the fact that the world is full of unscrupolous, lazy, developers is why I started considering using the BSDL instead of the GPL. With the BSDL folding of source code into proprietary code is acceptable while with the GPL this is not the case. Considering the fact that it is nigh impossible to know if your code has been stolen and used in some binary only application with no external dependecies (unlike the nVidia driver) without going through a lot of trouble to discover this (code dissasembly) and then a lot of trouble to prove it, I have started looking for an alternative to the GPL. I settled on the BSDL for a few reasons which I will list below
- I'm not getting paid either way so why
- try to restrict people from making money of my software. After all, Redhat has proved that it is possible to get rich off other people's code even if it is GPLed.
The purpose of my post isn't to start a flame war so if that is your response when you read this, don't bother I'll simply laugh at it. On the other hand I am interested in well written, intelligent opposing viewpoints and/or exposures of flaws in my reasoning.PS: It's 4 AM and instead of studying for my Calc III final I am posting to Slashdot. AAAAAAAAARGHHH!!!!
nVidia would be no problem if they were an isolated incident. It's the fact that this is going on in such a widespread way, across so many companies, that is threatening. It's threatening because if people don't see that their GPL work is being protected, they won't write as much.
I think perhaps if you want to kill free software, this is the way to do it. Just show the authors that there is a pervasive violation of both the letter and the intent of their licenses for somebody else's pecuniary gain, and that we can't afford to go to court and we can't use publicity to go after the offenders because it's not popular to do so. They'll stop writing.
That's why these incidents bother me so much.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
All valid points, but what, exactly, do you propose as a solution? Last time I checked, GNU made money by selling manuals and T-shirts. Each of these problems could be solved with a couple of million dollars and a good lawyer. GNU, unfortunately, has neither.
Has anyone ever heard of one documented case where a developer willingly violated the GPL and actually recieved anything besides a collective browbeating from OSS advocates?
AFAIK there's one. Look at the case of QuakeLives - the guy basically violated section 6 of the GPL from day one by taking a bunch of OSS Quake code and closing it, and then telling people they had to forfeit their rights under the GPL in order to download it. The only reason he ever backed down was because John Carmack stepped in and threatened legal action (which he, certainly, can afford).
That's the only time I'm aware of. It's obvious that this problem will only grow as time progresses, the GPL becomes more pervasive, and the computer industry grows exponentially. But there's really no obvious solution. So to your final proposition, I say, "don't tempt fate" - eventually something like this will happen. It will be interesting to see what, if any, repercussions there are.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
Yeah, thats right. Do unto others as the bastards would have done to you, eh?
How about showing them our way of life and SW development, and see if they don't come around eventually? Do you really think we would have seen, let's say, open sourced SB Live drivers if the community had acted like rabid dogs fighting over snippets of code? Of course not. We share. In good spirit.
When someone trips and finds themselves with their head stuck in an unfortunate bodily orifice we help them get it out and get back on their feet. That is how we got where we are today, and that is how we will get even further in the future.
Regards
If the general linux public takes a different view then maybe they are mistaken. If NVIDIA go bust, or choose to stop supporting Linux, who will keep support for their card up to date? Now ask the same about 3dfx. Open source means more future-proof. Of course, it depends how long you want the hardware to last.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Ok, there's two separate concepts. Morally meaningless, and Legally meaningless. Some people believe that the concept of IP, as the law sees it today, is Morally meaningless, because nobody has a right to restrict copying and distribution. But it is definitely not Legally meaningless, cos if you copy enough stuff you'll be in trouble. To ensure that free software stays free, you use your Legal rights over the software. You say people can only use it if they don't restrict others' Moral rights by putting burdensome Legal obligations on them not to copy it.
If, as some people advocate, copyright law were to be dismantled, the Legal protection given to your Moral rights by the GPL would vanish. However, also the ability to put burdensome Legal obligations on people would vanish, so there would be no need for a GPL. Until/unless that happens, the GPL is a good Legal tool for protecting Moral rights.
I think there's no conflict, as long as you get the distinction between Legal and Moral clear.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
>release the module under the GPL, immediately, or go to court.
I agree, because the intention of using the GPL has always been to make more code open - the "virus-like" nature that some people condemn is, nonetheless, the point. Companies and authors rigorously defend other copyrighted material every day for their own motives of financial gain or creative control, and legally the GPL is nothing more or less than a copyright. Having them remove the offending code is not the motive for initially using the GPL - opening up the derivative code is.
Removing the code and replacing it with a functional equivalent doesn't even really address what they've already gained from it, either, because it was there during the development effort and its presence will have been partly responsible for the final state of the other, closed code in the project. In other words, not all the damage can be undone (but note that this point isn't likely to be addressed by copyright law - in fact the idea is more akin to patents).
However, since not everyone does have your resources, there need to be legal funds in place to deal with these cases.
-- Life is short. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. ~ Robert Doisneau
One item I didn't see mentioned in the story: if commercial code is closed-source, how can you spot stolen^H^H^H^H^H^Hnoncompliant code? Much harder with a stripped binary...
I disagree,
/. way was perhaps more "kosher" and nice. We are linux users, we are zealots.
/. flame fest and not notify Nvidia. By giving them notice, we allowed them to explain themeselves, this is wrong and it makes them not seem so bad.
:)
While the
The appropriate way to handle it would have been to tell Bruce Perens and let him start a
How can we stand for this?
-Davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
THIS MUST STOP. I guarantee you nVidia will NOT just ask you kindly to stop if you (for example) violate their license by reverse-engineering their software. Hell, no. Instead, you'll have a hundred letters from big-time lawyers in your mailbox, your ISP will be court-ordered to shut off your site(s), and if you're lucky you'll only be paying them off for the next 40 years after you lose in court.
We should be making it at least as painful for them. Threaten, sue, and threaten some more. They won't learn any other way. Our licenses are not negotiable. You want the DMCA? Well, then, IT GOES FOR US TOO. Follow the license or go to jail. Where were the copyright police today? They didn't have any trouble rousting out a 13-year-old kid IN A FOREIGN COUNTRY no less or fucking over mp3.com, so where were they for this equal offense?
The GPL is every bit as binding, every bit as legal, and every bit as serious a license as any other. It's time we got tough about this. They're playing hardball, we're striking out one after another, and then when they're up to bat we give them intentional walks, one after another.
I hope to God I come up with something nVidia sees fit to use in their software. Because I have balls, resources, and a good mind to fuck them to Hell and back. It's long past time for this one-way street to come to an end.
The way you encourage mistakes not to happen is make them costly.
If it comes down to, "Apologize then clean up the header and say you fixed it" - that isn't costly. Do you have any reason to believe that code and algorithms which may have been borrowed in the binary was cleaned up as well? Of course not - doing that would make the fix potentially take longer. Companies generally don't play nicely and tend to have some trouble accepting that others actually might be so naive as to expect that they would.
At the least - very least - there should be an insistence on having the developer whose code was nicked get access (under an NDA if need be) to the source to verify whether more was borrowed. That should be an absolute minimum requirement before anyone believes them.
Preferably the driver should be forced to be GPL as per the licence which the code was distributed under. (That is, after all, the purpose of the GPL.) If they do not do that then they should seek an alternate licence from the author. Note that nothing in the GPL prevents the author from re-releasing a non-GPLed version. And yes, the author would be perfectly justified asking for gobs of money.
But no, none of this is going to happen. Which is why when people who don't think like lawyers start thinking that people who pay lawyers will play nice, they get the short end of the stick. Repeatedly.
*sigh*
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
Let's look at this in a more jaded way...
They used GPL'ed code to cut their development cost and they would have continued to use the code unless they were caught. Now they'll go back and remove it but there's still an incentive to use GPL'ed code in a closed way:
1) They probably won't get caught.
2) If they do, there's no penalty... just say "whoops... that was an accident"
The point is: If instead of GPL'ed code it was another company's copyrighted code, there is no way they'd get off we a "mea culpa... we'll be good boys now". There would have been extra cash involved or the company who got ripped off would have gotten some rights to the violating product... note that nVidia still doesn't think that they should have to open up the offending module.
Hell... why doesn't some company take Linux and relabel it as their own OS and sell it as a binary only. Then over the next four years they can go in and rewrite subroutine after subroutine in successive releases as people complain... the company will then have four years of revenue off of the work of other people.
--Rob
While I applaud the handling of this on both sides, this sort of thing shows a blindspot among a lot of people here.
A lot of people here seem comfortable, simultaneously, with two very contradictory ideas. On the one hand, there's the idea that someone who claims "copyright" on something, say music, has no real right to demand that people not copy or distribute their works in a manner against the wishes of that person. On the other hand, there's the idea that someone who releases something under the GPL has every right to demand that no one violate that license and copy or distribute that work in a manner (sans source) against his/her wishes.
There's a deep conflict between those ideas, and Slashdotters who adore copyleft and ignore copyright need to recognize that and somehow resolve it.
In other words, how can GNU be so holy if the little copyright "c" is meaningless? I'm curious as to thoughts.
"We'll fix it on the next release" is a nice sentiment, but they have been infringing on Ralph Metzler's rights, and are currently violating the GPL, and will continue to do so until the next release, whenever nVidia decides that will be.
If nVidia really wants to make this right, they should either
- a. take down the offending drivers from their site today, and go back to the last revision or drivers without the offending code, or
If a large company is caught infringing on the patents of another large company, they are usually asked to pay a licensing fee. This situation should be no different.b. they should be asked to make the appropriate royalty payments to either Ralph Metzler and/or the Open Source community.
If we, as the Open Source community, decide not to pursue nVidia's immediate resolution of this, and persist instead in being "polite" instead of protecting our rights, we will find it infinitely harder to enforce our licenses in the future.
Free music from Jack Merlot.
So, if Ralph isn't responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties (e.g. nVidia) to the GPL, who is?!?
I am not saying that Ralph should demand "all sorts of concessions" from nVidia; however, they are under a legal obligation to follow the License, whether Ralph chooses to enforce it or not. The fact is, Ralph isn't the only person involved in this situation, and the License serves not only to protect the interests of the programmers, but to protect the interests of the users of the software.
You are right, the whole community has not been harmed by this; just those with nVidia cards. Anyone who downloaded those drivers have now been harmed by nVidia's carelessness. First, many of them bought cards based on the assumption that nVidia would continue to support Open Source. In retrospect, this was obviously a mistake.
Then, they were misled into thinking that these new binaries were closed-source, 100% nVidia-written drivers, which would have been just fine, except...this turns out to be patently false as well.
Finally, when the users went to the site for updated drivers, they were not informed, as the GPL requires, that they are at that point entitled to the source code to the software they are using on their own hardware! Therefore, the number of people harmed by this is far greater than a single programmer.
Now, whether or not Ralph chooses to pursue the misappropriation of his work, you are correct; it is his own choice. But it was also his choice to give up some of the control he has over his source code, when he released it under the GPL.
The License serves to protect software end users, not just Ralph. If the community doesn't care enough to enforce it, the GPL will just be the punchline to a stupid hippie joke. I don't want that to happen! Do you?
Free music from Jack Merlot.
3Dfx's drivers may be much more advanced than those of other companies, but there's the rub: most other companies are not as good with their drivers as 3Dfx. That's why nVidia has incentive to remain closed-source--because their own drivers are pretty darned good, while the drivers of S3 and ATI totally suck and Matrox's drivers have only recently started to mature in terms of 3D acceleration and OpenGL.
What that means is, by opening the source to its drivers, nVidia is inviting the competition to inspect the secret sauce and help them in developing their own recipes. It's terrible drivers which have prevented ATI from becoming a big player in performance 3D, and mediocre drivers which held Matrox back. nVidia would lose an edge if it were to open up its driver source.
However, what the Open Source community needs to do with companies like nVida is remind them that their real advantage isn't in proprietary drivers, but in the superiority of their hardware. (For example, 3Dfx's drivers are typically great, but right now their soon-to-be-released Voodoo 4/5 boards are getting stomped by the GeForce 2 from nVidia thanks to its superior silicon). If they can be convinced that opening their driver source will yield better drivers and allow them to spend more R&D time on keeping their hardware more advanced than the competition's, then they'll do that, because nVidia's best advantage is its hardware--its driver advantages are more fleeting. What's needed is an effective evangelist to show them the way, like when a certain Apple CEO said to a certain soft-drink executive "Do you want to sell sugared water all your life, or do you want to change the world?" Or, when a certain essay caused Netscape to open the Mozilla code.
The key here is that open source's big players need to start pushing for these code openings. There's no earthly reason why nVidia couldn't be made to realize how well it could capitalize on its hardware advantages if it didn't have to put so many resources into driver dev.
As a final note, I doubt they could have been ignorant of their use of GPL'd code. Their driver dev people don't just go around using source code they find on the Net, without reading what the licensing terms are. That doesn't happen in a company like nVidia which is known for its good driver development team, a big company which surely has an interest in keeping its programmers from making costly mistakes by plagiarizing the IP of other companies. I'd be willing to bet that their use of GPL'd code was on purpose, not an accident, and that there's other GPL'd code hidden in those binary-only drivers. The corporate attitude is probably that stealing open-source code is okay. And that's yet another reason that we should try extra hard, but with honey rather than vinegar, to get them to realize the merits of open-source driver development.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*