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.

Comments

Has the GPL ever been successfullly enforced?

[ellem]

Has the GPL ever been successfullly enforced?

Has it even needed to be enforced?

Re:Has the GPL ever been successfullly enforced?

[wfmcwalter]

Never in court. It has, to date, never been necessary.

Although there is some doubt that some of the provisions of the licence are legally enforcable (particularly the "contagious" aspects thereof), counsel for most decent-sized companies are very paranoid about GPL, as the consequences of integrating GPLed code with proprietary stuff and then losing subsequently in court would be quite severe. They plainly think that GPL is sufficiently well drafted that its enforcability is credible, and they're not taking any chances.

In the last couple of years, management in larger tech companies has recognised the PR value of free/open code, and recognised also how damaging being seen to violate GPL or similar licences would be, so that's another reason larger companies are careful not to intentionally violate GPL.

I'd venture to suggest that the great majority of cases where the GPL is broken are done through ignorance, either that the code in question is GPLed or ignorance of the implications of the licence itself. I'd be willing to give the RTLinux folks the benefit of the doubt, and say that, while they have a different interpretation of the GPL fom FSF's, they're not acting in bad faith.

If there intent was IP...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Why didn't the RTLinux team focus on an xBSD solution?
Linux was intended to be incompatible with "Free for me, but not for you."

jeremiah cornelius

Linus involvement?

[jeffy124]

since the FSF isn't the copyright holder, they can't do much about it

Could Linus Torvalds become involved in this case? I am not familiar with RTLinux, but since Torvalds is the trademark holder of the name "Linux" and provides the license for using and modifying it, would he be the one to push something like this further?

RTF-GPL

[Darth RadaR]

If RTLinux wanted to patent something, why the fsck base it off of a GPL'd product in the first place? It can only become a legal mess, and if FSM Labs wins in court, it's gonna piss off the FSF, OSS, and anything else slightly connected to Linux.

You'd have to be insane to invoke that sort of bad kharma.

'GPL violations'

[SmileyBen]

I wish people would stop calling these things 'GPL violations'. What this is is a copyright violation. RTLinux is using someone else's copyright material without permission - no more, no less. That is illegal. Calling it a 'GPL violation', something which won't appear in any law anywhere seems silly, and just confuses the issue - which is plain and simple, and a matter of copyright.

Re:it's more than just not releasing source code..

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no. First of all, he is releasing the source. Second of all, the GPL doesn't prevent you from patenting inventions that are incorporated into a derived work. The GPL violation results from the _extra_ restrictions he has placed on the derived work.

Re:GNU is an operating system?

[reynaert]

Stallman's goal for the Free Software Foundation has always been to develop the GNU operating system.

Due to a variety of reasons, the kernel of GNU (called the Hurd) is still in early beta state -- definitively not usable. So the FSF uses the Linux kernel until the Hurd gets stable.

Whether you call it Linux or GNU/Linux depends really a matter of perspective:

• GNU/Linux means that you run the GNU system, and that you use the Linux as a temporary stopgap, to be dumped as soon as the Hurd is ready. (Remember that the FSF never contributed a single line of code to Linux)
• Linux means that you consider Linux an operating system in its own right, independent of the GNU project and the Free Software Foundation.

I know these people

[Anonymous Coward]

I know these people and they are a small company and have long been involved with working on Linux. One of these people is Cort Dougan who has worked on the PPC port of linux for a long time. Victor has been a supporter of the GPL and they do release the source. The patent just enforces the way that program code can be used.

In the GPL a company cannot just take the program and make something new and not give out the source code, but what Victor is doing is allowing for a double licensing system. If you don't want to make some sort of commerical product you do things under the terms of the GPL. Which fits because to write RTLinux programs you have to create modules, which can quite often require mods to the RTLinux parts. However, if you need to do it in a closed system then he will allow that if you license the Technology from him.

I can't see anything wrong with this because look at the cross licensing by many other products out there like QT and the OpenOffice project. Just how is this any different. I can see that you people don't even know what is going on and have become a set of rabid dogs and didn't even check into how it worked.

There are more important things to worry about

[mrbill]

I'll probably get labeled as a troll for not agreeing with the masses, but right now, there are more important things to worry about than having a penis war over a software license.

Isn't a violation

[Anonymous Coward]

RTLinux is available for NetBSD and is thus not dependent on Linux, as such it doesn't break the GPL according to RMS previous statements.
This is because RMS have said that only if there is a dependency on GPL'ed code, it has to conform to the GPL.