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Epson Pulls Linux Software Following GPL Violations
ChrisWong writes "GPL violations has caused Epson to yank their free downloads of their ImageScan! and Photo Image Print System software for Linux. While one can use xsane instead of their ImageScan! software, the latter is easier to use and produces subjectively more attractive output."
At least they did the right thing... acknowledged the problem, and did an internal audit, and found a problem in the second piece of software.
The website implied that they'd have a compliant version up sometime, and that everyone should upgrade when it's available.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
for dealing with this responsibly--assuming, of course, that the violations weren't intentional. The /. post seems to have an overtone of "because of the GPL we lost a nice piece of software". But I think that's inappropriate way to look at it. Rather,
I hope that after taking stock of the situation, Epson decides to release the source code for those programs per the terms of the GPL. That's what the GPL is trying to promote and incentivize. If we miss out on a few possibly-useful proprietary programs as a result, I can live with that.
a company doing something propelry instead of putting spin on it?
They admit the FSF informed them of violations, so they pulled the software from the site in order to check it out and get into compliance. They also drop a hint that they will encourage anyone to upgrade to the new compliant version once released.
Seems like they are playing fair to me.
I'm in the process of purchasing printers and a company acting responsibly, with respect to the GPL or any license, would seem to be a company I'd be happy doing business with. Realistically, this is the best method to encourage hardware manufacturers to support the FSF and it's goals.
I agree, it is nice to see a big company like Epson actually commit themselves to *nix support, and for them to raise their hand and say 'Ooops, we're sorting it out, sorry about that'.
Disclosure like this will mean they'll get more respect for being honest about the situation, rather than burying their head in the sand hoping people won't notice (like a certain company and their interpretation of OS security). A company who admit their mistakes will be more inclined to learn from them, rather than focusing their efforts on passing the buck.
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
They may not want to release it under GPL if it includes their own propietary code. If they are foreced to release it anyway that will certainly bolster Microsofts argument and scare a lot of companies from using or contributing to GPLed code.
So, please keep your flames to a moderate temperature.
While it would be cool if what they did here was to GPL their whole package, and contribute to the community, it looks like they'll replace whatever minor piece of GPL code they've incorporated with something else.
Epson has been pretty good about providing relatively good documentation and developer support for their products (which is why their printers and scanners are the best supported out there by free code), even if they haven't contributed actual code or algorithms.
Sure, people could intentionally steal a GPL projects' work and call it their own (i.e. Sigma Designs theft of Xvid's codec), which is pretty slimy, but heck, sometimes people just make mistakes. Maybe someone thought a package was BSD licensed, and wasn't careful enough, or didn't understand some semantic issue of the GPL..
Or, maybe they are thieves also, but I'd give them the benefit of the doubt, and call them innocent unless proven guilty.
someone mentioned demanding the source code.
thats just the sort of over-reaction thats going to make a company not want to deal with linux.
be happy they are rectifying the problem.
if you want to encourage linux development, attacking anyone that slips up with reckless abandon is not the way to do it, especially when it may have been an honest mistake.
zealots dont make good reps.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
You're assuming that they will re-write (or, for the cynical, try to obfuscate) the portions in violation instead of linking to the GPL'd libraries and releasing the source for those, which I think is a much more likely scenario.
Unless they agree to the terms of the GPL, the GPL doesn't apply, and they lose all the rights it grants, and this becomes a simple copyright violation case, and they're probably justified in asking you to return the software, since they didn't have the right to give it to you in the first place.
Wow! epson happily respects and complies with the GPL! they just won another loyal customer! AGFA,Cannon and HP can all sit aside while my next new Linux scanner will be an Epson!
If we dont support the companies that not only release a Linux program/driver but also respect the GPL then we all might as well just give up and install XP like good drones.
Kudos to Epson!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If they plan to solve it by releasing code as required by the GPL, but are delaying the release in order to possibly remove code they don't have the legal right to GPL (for example, licensed code from another company), then it'll be a good thing.
If they plan to solve it by removing the GPL'd components and replacing them with Epson-written components, then they are no longer in violation of the GPL, but nothing has been gained by the Free Software community (unless making your proprietary competitors do a little extra work counts as a gain).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
1) At present, we don't know what the nature of the GPL violation is. Certainly by the sound of Brad Kuhn's comment it sounds like the violation was either inadvertent or due to a misunderstanding of the requirements of the GPL. They're not "getting away" with violating the GPL at all -- they're fixing it, on their own nickel.
2) Sure, if you're really unethical you might be able to get away with something like that once, but if you keep making the same mistake you'll wear out your welcome soon enough.
Most big companies hate admitting mistakes (so do most small companies, and most individuals, for that matter). Epson could have simply withdrawn these packages without ever saying why, and either never put them back up or reinstated them later without ever saying what happened, but they chose to admit their mistake.
They don't provide us with any information about their color management or dither algorithms, which seems fair to me -- that's their real "secret sauce" over their competition. We don't need that; we have bright people who can come up with clever dither algorithms, and we also have people interested in color management. It's probably better for everyone if we do things differently from Epson in that regard; it gives us opportunities to devise better algorithms.
The Sane backends are GPL'ed, but provide one exception: "it is permissible to link against such a library without affecting the licensing status of the program that uses the libraries." - this is a quote from the LICENSE file that is part of the Sane distribution.
EPSON KOWA did actually release the source code for their backend - even though they were not required to do so, they would still be allowed to link against the backends if their software were closed source. They did however make one exception: The image manipulation routines that they use to in their Windows and Mac drivers is delivered as a library without sources. They do provide the sources (under the GPL) for the rest.
My opinion is that they are the owner and the copyright holders of their frontend code, so they should be allowed to do anything with it - e.g. link agains a closed source library, but this is probably just my naive common sense interpretation, everybody with a law degree probably has a different opinion.
So EPSON did not try to sneak some GPL code into their closed source applications, they did not relabel GPL code, they wanted to do the right thing and provide us with their source code.
EPSON is very pro open source, they provide programming information for their scanners (and printers for the gimp-print project) and if I run into problems they even provide hardware to debug problems.
I don't get payed for saying this, but if you are in the market for a scanner (or a printer) then please consider an EPSON device. Not only are these pretty good scanners and probably the best inkjet printers around, they are very nice to us Linux users. :-)
GPL code will remain free and will thus *always* be in the public domain. BSD code lacks this protection. The fundamental thing which most people fail to understand is that the GPL is meant to keep the *C O D E* free, not preserve your freedoms. It does this by restricting your freedom to make the code proprietary and in doing so guarantees to you and the rest of humanity at large that the code, in all it's forms, will always remain free.
Free as in freedom, not cost. BSD code is not free, it's simply open-source. There's a fundamental difference.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep