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

Copyright Holder?

[Zwack]

So, Who IS "THE" copyright holder? Linus? A consortium? Would some of the larger distributions be interested in combining together to fight this thing? RedHat/SuSE/Mandrake would do for a start...

I wonder what RTLinux have to say too...

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Z.

Re:Copyright Holder?

[JesseL]

I think Linus is the original copyright holder, but much of the kernel code now is copyrighted by it's respective contributors.

The Open RTLinux Patent License

[mblase]

...is listed on their site here. Anyone who can translate this into plain English, please do so. IANAL.

Re:The Open RTLinux Patent License

[TheFuzzy]

As an unlicensed contract lawyer, it's actually pretty clear ...

The patent restriction requires all users of the RTLinux code to comply with the GPL or make a seperate commercial license with Yodiaken. This is, IMHO, a good thing that extends "copyleft" to the patent world.

On the other hand, the Patent adds some additional restrictions not normally contained in the GPL:

5. To require any recipient of your product based on RTLinux code to send an e-mail to Yodiaken with their contact info;

6. To keep detailed records of commercial uses of RTLinux, to be furnished to Yodiaken on demand.

All of the other clauses either repeat the above or support the terms of the GPL.

Frankly, overall Yodiaken seems to be a staunch upholder of the GPL and using his patent to uphold it. I can't understand why Stallman is freaking about Yodiaken's demand to collect a little demographic information.

Surely this is something that could be worked out with Yodiaken or simply ignored? Sheesh!

-Josh

CmdrTaco made a factual error

[bkuhn]

CmdrTaco made a factual error in his statement above, so please do follow the link and read the details.

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.

Re:I hope they do the wrong thing.

[Azog]

Actually, I think there's a much more serious copyright violation of the GPL license going on. At least RTLinux makes the souce code available (contrary to the posted story, sigh, usual Slashdot fact checking...)

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:

Dear User:

We are committed to the Linux Open Source Movement.

We are currently working on making the source code for the modifications to
the Linux kernel available. Please continue to check www.linuxda.com for
download availability.

Thank you for your continual patience and support.

Best Regards,
Linux DA Customer Support Team

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.