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FSF Threatens GPL Lawsuit

Posted by timothy on from the tlas-with-tlas dept.

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.

4 of 426 comments (clear)

  1. How many developers get away with this? by TD_3G · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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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    1. Re:How many developers get away with this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I was once asked the best way to obsfusicate the 'readline' library for use in a proprietary project - I didn't feel inclined to supply an answer.

      One of the worst offenders are Viglen Computers in the UK, who sell a network proxy/security/mail 'black box' that nmap reports runs on Linux, and the proxy appears to be Squid. The GPL is included in the webmin interface (well buried) but no source code is supplied on CD and there is no way to recover it from the box (without some pretty dedicated reverse engineering).

  2. Too little too late. by FreeLinux · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. Inaccuracies are adding to GPL FUD by naarok · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.