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FSF Threatens GPL Lawsuit
An anonymous reader writes "Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News reports that OpenTV is violating the GNU General Public License. He notes that the Free Software Foundation is threatening to file a lawsuit in the case. If you haven't become an associate member of the FSF yet, now would be a good time!" Note that Gillmor is reporting the FSF's claim of violation, not making it himself.
Surley if the company is distributing GPL code under additional restrictive licensing agreements, the recipient can jsut ignore these and redistribute the code freely under the GPL? (Assuming he was very sure that this was the case.)
If the company does put the code online and issue a serious apology and a statement about their commitment to open source then sueing them may just send the wrong message about the open source community. However, if they show even the slightest sign of offending again the FSF should put their balls in a vice and squeeze hard - decent programmers who choose to give their work away should not be taken advantage of.
Beep beep.
Does anyone know of any statistics on how many developers actually get away with using Open Source Software (more specifically GPLed) code within their closed source products. It would seem to me that with the large distribution of GPLed code and the ease of use to obtain it along with documentation on how to use it, more and more people would do this assuming no one will ever find out. Afterall, how many people actually go around trying to look for breaches in the GPL.
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It is great that they are putting the source online, if they actually do it. But, the fact of the matter is that they are only doing this after being called on the carpet by the FSF. They had no intention of doing this before. That means that they were intentionally or inadvertantly defrauding their customers and the original developers of the code. This then leads to the question of damages. Actually, there is no question of damages but, rather a question of how much and to who?
As a final note cases such as these serve as a warning to any other potentially unscrupulous individuals that may have considered stealing GPL code. Put simply, such a law suite will further legitimize the GPL from a legal perspective and ease future GPL enforcement efforts. Assuming the FSF wins, that is.
Dan Gillmor is adding to the GPL FUD with errors in this article. He says a number of times that " If you create software that is derived from software previously licensed under the GPL, you must release what you've written under the same license.". This is not exactly true, you are not forced to release what you have written and you don't have to share the code unless you release your changes. In the case of OpenTV, it sounds like they are releasing the code, but doing an in-house mod to GPL code does not require you to release what you've written. Errors like this in the mainstream media just muddy the issue and add to GPL detractors.
I've also seen some pretty convincing arguments that the GPL is on pretty solid legal ground. The GPL gives you the right to view the source -> modify it -> release it. In return for that right, you agree to the conditions of the license. Namely , that if/when you release your work, you use the GPL. IANAL, but this sounds like a simply contract you are agreeing to when you release your code.
This appears to be, in essence, the same position as that of Gillmor (and of myself), that certainly it is a programmer's right to release the code however he wants, and, to some extent, we should be thankful that the code has been released at all. As Gillmor puts it, "Fine: If you don't like the GPL, don't create software from code that used it in the first place."
However, the arguments against using the GPL (as opposed to saying it is somehow immoral or Bad) are perfectly valid; if you are not making money off of keeping your code secret, and you are going to release the code anyway, does it hurt you to allow others to make their code, which is derived from your code, secret?
For many programmers, I suspect, the GPL is more intended as a means of preventing someone from selling their hard work. Perfectly valid, but other licenses can accomplish this more directly, while at the same time not creating such restrictions on other programmers who would like to use your code, say, with other open code which is not and cannot be converted to GPL.
Picture a hypothetical situation (derived from a real one I experienced) where package derived from two open sourced applications violates the GPL because one is GPL and the other is a commercial/proprietary license which also states that works derived from its code cannot be licensed under another license. In other words, trying to incorporate code from two open, and nearly identical, "viral" licenses violates both.
In this situation, the coder is prevented from doing something for no profit, simply to benefit the greater community in the original spirit of the GPL but hindered by the license itself.
Surely the GPL is a double-edged sword, and not a miracle cure for all situations.
For all the GPL violations that the FSF has ever gone to court/threaten to goto court, I have yet to see any damages.
Granted maybe its a good thing that when lawyer actually see what the GPL states, they fold like cheap suits.
BUT there should be costs to violate the GPL, if only as a deterrent. Otherwise people will try to get away with it and only come clean when FSF gets huffy and puffy and simply distribute the source code in question. Its like bank robbers stealing from a bank, getting caught, and only have to give back the money w/o penalties.
If the RIAA can get major damages out of college students for "sharing" mp3s with no business intent, then someone abusing GPL code should also be taken to the proverbial woodshed financially.
For those who worry that we will get "mercenary" lawsuits, offer to distribute all cash (minus reasonable expenses) to some worthy charity (other than the FSF).
All that being said...IF there are damage awards, how much do you ask for violating a free product's license. Your avg jury probably will simply say "The offending parties should post their code, but the original person didnt lose sales" and probably give squat.
I dont even presume to know a way to properly calculate damages, but I do think it shouldnt be discriminatory amongst popular projects like Linux kernel vs. little projects of the week. Hence the lil guys are even more likely to be screwed over. Maybe the % of GPL source code in the overall body of product source can be a factor, but also relevant functionality overall too.
Yeah -- more specifically, "everyone" is misleading as well, isn't it?
I thought you were only on the hook to provide source to whoever you distributed binaries to -- not *everyone* (unless, of course, you are giving away the binaries).
So, if I write XYZ including GPL'd source, I have to make source available to anyone I make binaries available to. So, if that's a single customer contract, they get the source when I deliver on the contract, along with the binaries, docs, etc. If that's anyone willing to pay a sticker price, they get the source when they buy the box (binaries, docs, etc.). But I *don't* need to post the source on a website or anything unless I post the binaries on a website, right??
Xentax
You shouldn't verb words.
Questioning wether the GPL is "enforcable" like this is just contributing to uncertainty.
Why on earth do we question it in the first place? It is based very solidly in copyright law, a field that is pretty much tried and tested by now.
If you take copyrighted code and distribute it without consent you are doing something illegal. The GPL is no different. Without that license, the user has no distribution rights.
You are the copyright owner for code you have written, that does not change by you licensing it out with the GPL. The case where a receiver of the code, uses it against in breach of the GPL-license is pretty much a open and shut case. If the GPL is found invalid, OpenTV would not have the rights to distribute the software at all.
The opposite, where the copyright holder tries to retract the rights to use the code (which is supposed to be irriversible except when the GPL is breached), is more interesting.