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RTLinux Patents: Issue Closed?
Anonymous Coward writes "LinuxDevices.com reports that the Free Software Foundation has reached an agreement with Victor Yodaiken which resolves what FSF considered to be a violation of GPL by the Open RTLinux Patent License. Details are not yet available, but it sounds like the clause in the license which required users of RTLinux to keep records and provide them to FSMLabs on demand was the principal source of the violation, and that the requirement is being dropped from an updated version of the RTLinux license that will be published in the next day or two. All in all, it seems like the FSF has successfuly enforced the GPL even though it was neither an owner nor co-owner of the software (i.e. the linux kernel) whose license terms were being violated. It's interesting to see this practical example of FSF in action, and bodes well for the future of GPL -- at least in a small way."
crimoid points to ZDNet coverage of the FSF's criticism of RTLinux's licensing terms, written before such a resolution was clear. Sourceforge on Thursday quoted RTLinux CEO Victor Yodaiken, CEO as saying that his company is happy to change "minor problems" with the RTLinux license, and that discussions are still going on with the FSF about those changes.
I love you! Also, I miss everyone from home! Anthony, Joey, Jon, I love you all!
...gaping anuses. only on slashdot.
Slashdot sucks. AC's can't reply until a logged in user posts. That is why I am posting, as a service to the community.
Free Anne Tomlinson!!
Now we have free as in beer, free as in speech, and free as in 'free for Stallman to crap all over if you don't put GNU in front of your product.'
Suddenly commercial ventures related to *free* software are starting to realize that *free* means $0 for them, whether they are giving away free speech or free beer.
Puerto Ricans are fucking scum. One of them, driving in his lowered and pimped out piece of shit car, almost hit a friend of mine. The fucking wetback shitlips didn't even apologize, he just kept on going.
Couldn't anyone be considered a "co-owner"?
It's interesting to see this practical example of FSF in action, and bodes well for the future of GPL -- at least in a small way."
How do you figure? The supposed breach involved someone who is a part of the community. Presumably he shares at least some of the same views as those espoused within the GPL. That means it was a fairly good bet that he would deal with this (in an amicable manner) once it became apparent that he had violated the GPL terms.
Surely a much better test would involve people/companies who don't share the linux view of the world but who wish to leverage the codebase for their own gain..
Lets take one for the AC's... this time instead of having the third comment, but claiming to have the first... we have the 4th? but only claimed the 72nd!
In other news: The Average American is a complete idiot. Bombing Afghanistan would be just as bad as bombing concentration camps full of jews durring WW2.
Instead... we should get out our top secret assassination squads..
Ut oh... this guy in black is wondering what I'm doing on this computer... gotta post!
Free Software Foundation has reached an agreement
I don't know what's going to be worse, the US government or the GNU police......
It's interesting that the GPL and Stallman's way of dealing with violations does not establish legal precedents, since it's all solved out of the courts.
I wonder how much tech lawyers must hate this kind of behavior. It means less money in their pockets if everyone starts using the GPL. We may after all be headed to a better world.
Is anti-Linux at it's core here's the proof:
8 12 834,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp02
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2
"Owner" as in owner of the copyright. Contrary to popular opinion, Linux and other GPL software is actually copyrighted. The GPL is essentially a EULA, and has no legal force unless the program it is included with is copyrighted. Since the FSF did not write the Linux kernel, they have no copyright on it and therefore no legal rights to it, so their power is limited in this matter. Presumaby Linus Torvalds holds the Linux copyright, but I really don't know. Probably it's co-owned by several people, but it does *not* include everyone who's ever submitted a patch.
Omnes arx vestrum sunt adiuncta nobis.
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
FSF succeeded to turn on legions of mindless GNUtroids to jihad against RTLinux with the use of 'patent'-curseword in a case that was just a disagreement over details in the patent license. Do note, that the RTLinux policy of licensing the patent freely only to GPL software and collecting cash from proprietary code makers continues unaffected and FSF has no problems with it.
.. it really has nothing to do with the future of the GPL. It would be different if RTLinux decided that they did not want to work with the GPL while using GPL'ed software.
This is a company who made an honest mistake and did what they could to fix it. Really, a non-issue. They probably has no clue that they were violating the GPL.
6. You will keep complete and accurate records of all commercial uses of the Patented Process and all commercial distributions of the Patented Process whether that distribution occurs directly or as part of your products or services. You will also provide copies of all such records upon request from Licensor.
is "Does he run Linux?"
Why this is called RTLinux. It's a real-time OS that is very lightweight that can run Linux or NetBSD as a pre-emptible process.
Isn't this an infringement of the Linux trademark?
Won't Linus lose the rights to the trademark if he doesn't follow this one up?
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
Unless they have signed over their copyrights (to Linus), any submitter of a patch of significant size (a patch having a work status) is a co-owner. But, IANAL. I don't know if any employee of FSF have submitted any patches of significant size, but it's not impossible.
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
...is coming. ARE YOU READY???
buy, now...
Considering that the patent is easily breakable in court, the FSF settled with Victor very easily. Why ? because RTlinux is irrelevant : RTAI is the way to go now. It provides all that RTlinux provides and much more, and it isn't encumbered by silly patents.
All in all, a much better move than it first appears by the FSF : they win on the PR front by making Victor change his license and they save money by not contesting a patent that isn't important anymore. Way to go guys !
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This is not really about enforcing the GPL, it didn't get close to that point. All we had was a short public dialogue. Enforcement is something that happens in court. I wouldn't even count an out-of-court settlement as enforcement, that's just avoiding the issue because the defandant thinks that a successful enforcement would be likely or doesn't think it's worthwhile to mess around in court. This was way far from anything like that.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
but this helps set a precedent. Too bad it's not in the legal sense. What we really need is a test case, to find some business that violated the GPL and take them to court over a big, intentional GPL violation where they'll attack the integrity of the GPL. If it survives the court case, we're in good shape and makes it likely that companies will think twice before they violate the GPL.
For some strange reason I have an urge to dig through code from a certain company.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
says "page not found"
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
The asertion was made that this outcome bodes well for the future of the GPL. I'm not sure if I see that. No legal prescident was set here; only more evidence of the FSF's ability to bully people into bending to their will. Don't get me wrong, I believe the FSF was right in this case, in insisting on the changes that were mand, but as a matter of law, a third party still has no standing in a license negotiation, and that's probably a good thing - as a matter of law
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
All the same, I'm glad things seem to have worked out for the best, albeit at the unfortunate cost of airing dirty laundry in public.
This account or IP has been temporarily disabled. This means that this IP or user account has been moderated down more than 4 times in the last 72 hours. If you think this is unfair, you should contact pater@slashdot.org. If you are being a troll, now is the time for you to either grow up, or change your IP.
fuck you Malda
In what is quite possibly the worst pun ever, is it possible that Victor has received a pre-emptive patent on pre-empting? That is, he has prevented others from nefariously patenting the process, by patenting it himself. It's not as if he is trying to exploit it financially, and the patent process is quite costly.
"A coward is incapable of causing destruction; it is the prerogative of the brave" - Mahatma Ghandi
Well, I tried to post a corrected link, but there must be a problem with Slashcode. Here's my attempt below:
8 12 834,00.html?chkpt=zdnnp1tp02
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2
When I type it in above, there's no space, but when it shows up as a comment, there's a space between 2812 and 834. Just copy and paste, then remove that space.
I'll save you some time: it's anti-OSS FUD saying that Open Source is "Rocked" by this awful transgression. Yeah, right. It was a minor dispute, nothing more.
P.S. I don't think ZDNet is anti-Linux "at it's core", they simply have some writers that are anti-Linux, just as they have some writers that are pro-Linux (like Evan Liebovitch [sp?]).
All in all, it seems like the FSF has successfuly enforced the GPL even though it was neither an owner nor co-owner of the software...
But in this "enforcement," as in others by the EFF, the change required was minor and the party was cooperative when the problem was pointed out -- the blurb even said that RTLinux was "happy to change" license provisions to comply with the GPL.
We still need a test against a genuinely aggressive GPL violator. One who either denies the violation, or tells the EFF to go fsck themselves. The "enforcement" so far seem like a football team scrimmaging against itself: conceptually useful, but not necessarily predictive of real victory.
This is a chart of how bloated the Linux kernel is. (each b represents 1 megabyte of the .tar.gz file)
1.0: b
1.2: bb
2.0: bbbbb
2.2: bbbbbbbbbb
2.4: bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Remember to email the FSF at licensing@gnu.org if you see a GPL, LGPL, or GFDL violation.
Document the situation as fully as time allows, and the FSF will do everything it can to get the problem fixed.
Who cares about the content, the url is annoying
I suppose you mean to say that the FSF is not the copyright holder of (part of) the software?
Copyright does not make you an owner, it makes you the beneficiary of a temporary exclusive right to copy the work. You can't own software.
You may think I'm nit-picking, but I think that that's a very important distinction to make. The general public's (and politician's) failure to see this point is a (the?) basic problem in the thinking behind all those bad IP laws.
AFAIK, RTAI is an offshoot of RTLinux. The RTLinux philosophy is that the RT side should be highly simplistic and have a tiny set of primitives. RTAI seeks to evolve the RT services to encompass everything you'd ever expect from a RT operating system.
In the RTLinux approach you want to place the minimum amount of stuff on the RT side for reliability reasons. The RTAI people feel that approach handicaps the RT application programmer.
However, Yodaiken's license applies to RTAI all the same.
Marko
This looks like the first real win for the FSF. Hopefully there are many many more, Now if we could get geeks and techno-prople to donate 1/25th of what they donated to the WTC disaster they'd get some real teeth to go after larger targets.
BTW, before you click on the (TROLL) button because I didnt mention the WTC while crying and wailing.. It's an example that the geeks donated and helped overwhelmingly to the aid of those poor people and the red-cross. and the fact that many are willing to donate time to go and help that is way above and beyond the call.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Your penis violated CmdrTaco's anal filter. Buttfuck aborted
Hmm, looks like I'm going to have to retune my "GPL is Dying..." troll.
Note that the last mod time, as I write this, is Jan 22, 2001 - so it hasn't been changed yet. It looks like section 2.6 is going to be removed.
One has to wonder why rtlinux screwed up here. This seems like a ton of bad publicity for such a minor change. To say nothing about the negative publicity over a patent (and a patent that wouldn't hold up in court, no less).
But the big question about this "Stallman" is "Does he run Linux?"
Of course. Linux makes up a part of the primary operating system used at the FSF; it's the kernel of the GNU/Linux system: GNU's Not UNIX®, and Linux® Is Not UNIX®. I still wonder why FSF didn't register the "GNU" mark.
Get a GNU/Linux system today!Will I retire or break 10K?
Copyright does not make you an owner, it makes you the beneficiary of a temporary exclusive right to copy the work. You can't own software.
Right. In that vein, many people have dropped the term "IP" entirely and taken up calling such rights "government-granted monopolies," or GGMs. ( Read More... | )
Will I retire or break 10K?
turn to twoll!
Oddly enough, the talk of press releases and social-karma (or corporate equivalent of avoiding brand tainting) seems to work in imposing social norms on recalcite companies. This is not to claim that the GPL is good or bad, but to point out that they are doing the modern equivalent of the church punishing obnoxious behaviour in the middle ages by parading perpetuators around in public with ugly masks and placards. The effectiveness might be questionable but there's no doubt that people's desire to conform (peer pressure) is a powerful psychological force (sometimes excessively so in teenagers) and it does have the advantage of being cheaper than lawsuits.
... we don't murder people because we understand the consequences of arbitrary violence. The GPL, whether mindless ideology or social conviction, is no less powerful in that at least people in the hacker community recognise the benefits and are willing to follow the principles.
The problem is so far the main groups that can take advantage of open source are the relatively prosperous western countries. Enforcement of the GPL license is going to be harder in places which don't respect intellectual endeavours (Eastern pirates), much less international laws (Taliban, etc). Ultimately laws are self-imposed constraints
The interesting fact about a global software economy is that reputation becomes so much more important. When details are kept track of contributors in freshmeat, sourceforge, etc. Old fashioned social ties are reused to subtlely enforce trust. Would you start up a company or work with someone you know that doesn't recognise the legimacy of software licenses? Public naming and threats to lose "face" in front of peers may ultimately unveil all sins (programming or otherwise).
LL
would someone kindly ram their cock up the ass of this little boy ? he needs the fucking of his life, preferably on the tip of a 14 inch penis. if youll notice he's quite a soft little twink and would probably squeal like a little piggie at first but would be easily subdued by a good whipping about his pudgy white ass and soft effeminite feet. i suggest kidnapping him and tying him hand and foot then giving him the fucking and torturing he deserves. mmmm...
i've heard he has a raging foot fetish and will kneel and lick the feet of any fat little gay boy and gladly let you tie him up and fuck the shit out of him once you torture him enough.
Actually, that's not precisely correct, either. The GPL is definitely not a EULA. Whereas most software "licenses" purport to place conditions on how you may use the software, the GPL places conditions on how you may copy and redistribute the software. This is a subtle but important difference.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I don't agree with the GPL. While it certainly does standardize open-source licensing, for any free software organization to become legalistic about another free software organizaion not following their terms to the letter is like biting the hand that feeds.
The FSF doesn't own any of the things covered by the GPL. They do, however, feel compelled to dictate terms of useage to the people who are making their software publically available. This shows, to me, little more then slightly masked greed.
I've released a few software programs that were very, very specialized, under a license I wrote myself...a 1-liner. "You can do whatever you want to this program, provided that you give me credit for making it in the first place and you don't blame me for anything wrong in it, known or not." No complaints...
The FSF seems to have gotten too big of an ego for its own good. Someone needs to cut them back down to size, in my opinion.
J.W. Koebel
Doesn't that RMS fanatic have anything better to do?
Yodaiken's company is a big contributor to Linux and OSS. I believe that, as such, they are due at least a modicum of respect and consideration. If polite attempts at correcting them are ineffective, you can always turn to the more heavy-handed approach later. People need to remember that if we want to be a community, we have to act like one. There will, as a matter of course, always be disagreements. Most of them can truly be solved without too much sword rattling by merely going to lunch together or something.
No, I believe this whole thing was just rotten. It's enough of an issue to make me very cautious about using GPL on any software I may contribute. I would hate to see what would happen if I accidentally did something contrary to the goals of the FSF.
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
Then we have PowerVR where they are not releasing the source (also a recent slashdot post).
And now, we have a loophole allowing these people to get away with it. There is a company already explooiting this loophole. Read on:
I work in the embedded hardware field. Today we received some hardware from a manafacturer, who uses linux to run on their hardware. In the past I was given all source code to their product, as they are obliged to, given that their code is derived from the linux kernel itself. However, today I was told that they will no longer be distributing their source, since they have managed to incorporate all of them into a loadable kernel module (which they are referring to as a "binary only runtime loadable driver". Apparently linus torvalds has recently said that binary drivers can be distributed in binary only form. From my knowledge of the previous source this company released, they have gone to considerable effort to move all of their code into this "binary driver". It is not so much a binary driver, as a real time linux system hacked into a driver. I suspect they intercept certain system calls to achieve this - I am in the process of checking the binary to find out.
I am under an NDA so cannot disclose more information, nor my name.
But is this against the GPL? I think it is, and given that my name exists in the linux kernel too, I am upset and would like to do something about this - but apparently only Torvalds has the right to sue them - is that true? (But he won't, since he has said binary only drivers are OK). And where exactly do we draw the line between a derived linux kernel and the same thing implemented as a loadable module?
"Making linux GPL was the best thing I ever did" - Torvalds. I'd hate to see the worst thing...
Then we have PowerVR where they are not releasing the source (also a recent slashdot post).
And now, we have a loophole allowing these people to get away with it. There is a company already explooiting this loophole. Read on:
I work in the embedded hardware field. Today we received some hardware from a manafacturer, who uses linux to run on their hardware. In the past I was given all source code to their product, as they are obliged to, given that their code is derived from the linux kernel itself. However, today I was told that they will no longer be distributing their source, since they have managed to incorporate all of them into a loadable kernel module (which they are referring to as a "binary only runtime loadable driver". Apparently linus torvalds has recently said that binary drivers can be distributed in binary only form. From my knowledge of the previous source this company released, they have gone to considerable effort to move all of their code into this "binary driver". It is not so much a binary driver, as a real time linux system hacked into a driver. I suspect they intercept certain system calls to achieve this - I am in the process of checking the binary to find out.
I am under an NDA so cannot disclose more information, nor my name.
But is this against the GPL? I think it is, and given that my name exists in the linux kernel too, I am upset and would like to do something about this - but apparently only Torvalds has the right to sue them - is that true? (But he won't, since he has said binary only drivers are OK). And where exactly do we draw the line between a derived linux kernel and the same thing implemented as a loadable module?
"Making linux GPL was the best thing I ever did" - Torvalds. I'd hate to see the worst thing...
I haven't heard that they've enforced the GPL on Kerberos against Microsoft. What happened there? Isn't that a little more important?
lay off the pipe dude. the gpl certainly is an eula. and there eula that says "you can't use this software to write anti communism treatises" doesn't exist.
I'm curious why the FSF got involved in this at all. They have nothing to do with the Linux kernel. That's someone elses IP. I think this is another example of the FSF sticking it's nose in to other peoples business and making it theirs. I just don't like that.
If the owners of the IP had issues with what was going on they could have handled this.
Darthtuttle
Thought Architect
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Lawyers defend copyrights everyday, even though they don't own them.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on