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FSF Statement on Violation of GPL by RTLinux
bkuhn writes "The FSF has issued an official statement on the GPL violation by RTLinux." nothign surprising here, basically they say that RTLinux is violating the GPL by not releasing the source to their Linux kernel mods, but since the FSF isn't the copyright holder, they can't do much about it. Now it's up to RTLinux to decide if they are gonna do the right thing or not.Update: 09/16 00:48 AM GMT by H : Please check out these comments for more information - it's not a source code violation, but a patent issue.
The violation has to do primarily with a patent license that imposes terms not allowed by the GPL.
This isn't much different matter than failure to distribute source code.
Has the GPL ever been successfullly enforced?
In fact, this has nothing to do with the GPL. This is how the copyright laws work; you cannot distribute a program that you don't hold the copyright to, unless the copyright holder has granted you permission to redistribute the program.
The GPL gives everyone the permission to redistribute the program, provided that they follow the requirements stated in the GPL. Those include, among other things, that it must be possible to obtain the source code for the entire program, including modifications.
So, this case does not really have anything to do with the GPL. It is a standard case where copyright has been breached.
I think Linus is the original copyright holder, but much of the kernel code now is copyrighted by it's respective contributors.
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The kernel is Linux. not GNU/Linux.
Linux distributed with GNU packages are(acording to RMS)GNU/Linux
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The violation has nothing to do with source code, which is freely available, it has everything to do with restrictions on use of the software - it is free only for non-commercial use. If you want to sell your program you have to buy a license. Interestingly, this is a case where GPL fanatics are sticking up for the rights of commercial users.
Next post could you please consider checking both your facts and your spelling? ;-)
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I think the case has been clear cut before that you can make modules binary only. So if that was the case, they should have every right to impose whatever restrictions on their module they want.
HOWEVER, I can not imagine that making Linux real-time could be done in a module and no changes whatsoever to any of the rest of the kernel - unless all the changes are GPL'd and released and they have a free and a professional version of a module which has some of the tweaks/functionality there.
I'm not saying that they are right, but given the nature of the legalise on the agreement on their site, either they have some major lawyers there, or they have an english->legalise filter, so I would think they hopefully understand the GPL.
Yodaiken's Patent on running the kernel as a RT process
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Please.
Nothing stopped the RTLinux people from "innovating". Unless you define "innovating" as "using copyright to prevent distribution".
Nothing forced the RTLinux guys to use the Linux sources as their basis, and thus accept the terms of the GPL -- they could have used BSD sources and avoided these issues. Instead, they used the Linux sources, and accepted the GPL license they came with. Plain and simple.
Noone is saying that they couldn't innovate, or turn a profit. They just have to abide by the terms they agreed to when they used the Linux sources =)
I belive there isn't a single copyright holder, but everyone who has done something on the linux kernel holds a part of the copyright and should be a able to sue them.
IANAL, but I don't think it works this way.
THe original copyright holder retains the copyright to the work and to all derivative works.
Suppose I rush off my own sequel to Harry Potter. Who owns my derived work? J K Rowlings. She as copyright holder owns the original work and has exclusive right to all derivative works. I can't say "You can't kill so and so because I did it in my work" -- because the new work is not mine. Linux doesn't belong to Alan Cox, or Red Hat or anybody else but Linus.
This describes the default situation with respect to copyrights. The complication here is that we have a license. The license, by definition, grants rights over and above what is allowed by fair use. GPL is intended to grant rights to creation of derivative works to recipients, and transitively to the recipients of derivative works. There are several possible outcomes:
(1) GPL works essentially as intended and exactly the rights intended are bestowed.
(2) GPL grants rights but the transitivity features are broken (e.g. more rights are bestowed, or at least fewer responsibilities are bestowed).
(3) GPL grants no redistribution rights to the immediate recipient at all, due to section 5.
In some ways (3) is preferable to (2), because many programs are distributed with the proviso that "any later version" of the GPL can be used. Thus the missing rights can be restored by choosing a fixed up license. However once rights are given, they probably can't be got back.
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Anyway, the company LinuxDA has made modifications to Linux (the kernel) to run it on Palm Pilots. A demo version is freely available for download. (see http://www.linuxda.com/download/index.html)
There's a "Coming Soon" spot on that page for "Source Code For Linux Kernel". But it has been months, and no source has shown up.
Not only that, but they have been asked (by Rick Van Riel, one of the significant contributors and copyright holders of the Linux Kernel) to provide source.
They still have not provided source.
I sent them an email about this, and got the following form letter:
I sent them another letter asking them if they thought they were violating the terms of the GPL by allowing months to go by without releasing the source, and if not, why not, but got no reply.
I also pointed out that it's not difficult to provide source (make mrproper, tar cvzf linuxda.tar.gz *, then ftp the file to the web site... it would take about 10 minutes.) Obviously they are purposely dragging their feet, and I'm a lot more worried that someone is getting away with that than the RTLinux patent thing.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
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