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Kiss Technology Counters MPlayer GPL Arguments
Snaller writes "Recently, MPlayer claimed that KISS Technology were violating the GPL by using parts of their MPlayer movie playback code in proprietary software. Now The Danish National Radio has interviewed the managing director of Kiss Technology, Peter Wilmar Christensen. He denies all claims of wrongdoing and suggests that if the pieces of code are the same, perhaps they were leaked from Kiss Technology and were then used by the Mplayer group. He also adds that the GPL is a weak license which has never been tested in court. Gabucino from the Mplayer team is furious, and accuses the director of outright lying."
The reason GPL has never been tested in court is that there haven't been any solid violations of the licence and the fact that it is so clear (the GPL that is...). The only grey area is 'derivative work' which most certainly includes blatently ripping off a chunk of code.
The only way we could know for sure would be to see the CVS/[insert source archive system here] logs to see whether they were developed all at once by KISS (implying they stole) or whether it built up over time...
To be or not to be.-Shakespeare
To do is to be.-Nietzsche
To be is to do.-Sartre
Do be do be do.-Sinatra
He just got a bunch of easily riled up geeks that love the GPL pissed off at him.
Expect mailbombing, DDOS attacks, and outright criticism. Then expect to start hearing from legal advisors that know what they are talking about.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Well, never let it be said that Americans are the only people to behave in shitty corporate self-interested ways.
Such dishonesty is painfully pathological.
... i'm really eager to see what is going to happen when the GPL goes to court.
To me, it's seems that with wider commercialization of GPLed technology, it becomes more important to have solid foundation to stop once and for all corporate greed and FUD.
The arguement of "who stole whose code" shouldn't be too hard to settle. There are archives of old versions, logs of when certain sections/features were added. Compare the allegedly stolen Mplayer code with the Kiss release date, and then tell Kiss to kiss our GNU/Asses.
As for the GPL being were and unverified in court, perhaps they'd like to be our guinea pig? Of course, without GPL they'd still be in violation of copyright and up for large monentary damages.
Neither scenario paints a pretty picture of Kiss Technology. Are they a publically traded company?
ThisIsAnExampleAccountGL@yahoo.com
Wow, either that's a bad translation, or Peter talked himself in circles like 8 times. I guess he wanted to make it clear that they don't use MPlayer directly... as if that really mattered. Instead of answering a question with an answer, he kept saying they were looking into it and investigating. Now that's okay for a one or two line answer, but he kept saying it over and over and over again. It really sounded like he had no idea what to say but decided to say it over and over again.
Over all, a fun read!
Matt Fahrenbacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Is there any such thing as a GPL defense fund? A lot of open source software is being developed by people who probably don't have the extra money to pay the legal fees needed to pursue action against GPL violators. Hence the GPL remains untested in court (although IBM may help fix that soon).
It'd be nice if any leftovers from the US$10 million that IBM and Intel are putting up would be dumped over into a general GPL defense fund.
We have confirmed what we already knew, that when using code licensed under the GPL then we have to publish any derivative work. This means that the legal foundation is very thin
Does that make any sense whatsoever? "If you want to publish something based on our code, then you have to abide by our terms" seems completely reasonable to me.
And once again someone (KISS, not parent poster) needs to understand that if the GPL isn't valid, they have absolutely no rights to use code copyrighted by the various authors of the Mplayer code.
Could someone who understands the language take a look at the pre-translated version of:
We doesn't use MPlayer, we use our own player, a player like we know from Real Player, Microsoft Media Player is the application used to display movies. It is a fundamental thing for our player, because it's what we are known for, being able to play a wide range of different formats.
And tell us weather thats actually what this guy said, or if he actually knows what any of this is about? What the hell is he saying? Is he claiming they are using Windows Media player on Linux? Or just that they have a program that functions similar to Real or WMP?
Yes, Kiss stole from Mplayer. Calling them on it early and harshly, though, might have been the wrong tactic as it forces Kiss to defend an unethical position or to admit they are thieves.
Now, it's an issue of ego and anger where it could have been a largely uninvolved and low key licence dispute.
Case in point: Anyone remember Marion Barry, former Washington DC mayor? He was caught buying crack cocaine -- and ended up a hero to many people because he fought back from an ethically undefendable position where he had already lost everything. Barry is still involved in DC politics.
Kiss currently can cause Mplayer and other projects trouble, and since Kiss also -- potentially -- has nothing additional to loose there is little reason for them not to be defiant and to basically say "No, you're wrong" to Mplayer.
The only thing that will change this is if the dammage of caving in is less than the dammage of fighting this.
Any ideas?
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
But why they were even looking to see how KISS's stuff worked is a bit curious.
Because, when you develop open source software, and suddenly some closed source company suddenly 'develops' software for their set top boxes that has very similar features to your open source software, you should check using simple tools (like strings) to see if anything matches. Its not hard to look for certain strings, and you certainly not violating any laws by doing it.
You aren't reverse engineering the software.
Open Source developers have every right to protect their projects.
What, you don't think Microsoft, and every other closed source software developer does this to products which are very similar to theirs?
How else are you supposed to discover when someone steals your work?
Brielle
One of the first things I'd say reading this is that his reaction looks a lot like several other vendors I dealt with whose CEO simply could not believe that either their employees or their subcontractors would steal code.
Some of the confusion also comes from the speaker. If the translation is accurate the speaker asks
"As he said, there are no big economical options for dragging the case to court. Instead they hope that the Open Source community will put so much pressure on Kiss Techonology that they will be forced to release all its software."
The speaker doesn't say anything about software stolen by employees or contractors, or software in dispute, just about "all software". So the reply is that KISS won't release their player app - which the company guy clearly doesn't think contains mplayer code so he doesn't have to release.
At that point he's already denied stealing any code, but confirmed he is having the matter checked.
Now it may be that code was stolen and he doesn't know about it. It may be it was stolen and he systematically was involved. I find the latter hard to believe - if it had been done by someone smart and with foreplanning they would a) have an instant cover story b) done the hiding job a lot better.
So the way I read this it says
"We havent copied anything but we will check"
"We wont be releasing all our code, including our proprietary stuff containing only our code"
"We do release all the open source stuff"
"We have fixed minor errors in the past"
"You are picking on the wrong people"
Put that way it's not quite the same as the mplayer view. Lets just see how the evidence pans out. If the KISS guys find someone stole code then we will see how they handle it. If the mplayer guys are right it won't be too long before the KISS folks will be apologising.
Alan
BTW: Larg e scale commercial copyright violation in parts of the EU (Denmark I believe included) is a violation of criminal not just civil law.
> How come companies like Kiss cant'be
> punished by Law?
Because the GPL is a rather weak weapon to make their life miserable. They just have to fix the problem or publish the source to their customers and the case collapses. This approach may be very sensible in a civilised society but not a good tool to annoy your neighbour.
The mutually incompatible responses (accusing MPlayer of being the derivative work, whilst questioning the enforceability of the GPL) are a standard legal defence tactic. You present every possible counter-argument you can think of, and depending on what the "facts" turn out to be, you've already gone on record defending yourself against them. It's actually a wise move when you're not sure whether you can establish the facts in court or not. Credible or not (it sounds a bit like Bart Simpson's "I didn't do it, and nobody saw me do it"), it's what our legal system encourages.
That sounds more to me like they understand the license and don't intend to violate it. They think its bad commercial business but the market will sort out whether their proprietary player is better than open source.
The Linux community have dealt with KISS before, and KISS are providing the linux kernel sources and busybox. People are building NFS support into their players and other fun stuff.
Reactionary readings of stuff, especially translated stuff that has also been through the radio system and journalists (who like a good story so tend to turn things up 8)) is never a good idea.
If we continue to buy these players while this issue remains unresolved, we are just shooting ourselves in the foot.
On the other hand, this guy sounds like a typical suit, who doesn't really know how his product gets made and whose main job is to pump it. Somebody else posted that he was once heard bragging about the "2 million lines of code" that went into his product. That's exactly the type of dumb, meaningless puffery you can expect from somebody who really doesn't understand what he's selling at a fundamental level.
He has said that KiSS is looking into the problem. If they discover that their firmware contains open source code in violation of its license, then KiSS should immediately issue a firmware update that removes that code, for good or ill as far as product performance goes. (I'm assuming here that they aren't going to relent on their stance that they cannot, under any circumstances, open their code.)
If they find that they really didn't use MPlayer's code, then I guess what they need to do is show their source code to a representative of MPlayer under strict NDA, such that the MPlayer people can be convinced. Would that solve MPlayer's problem, or would they be unwilling to sign an NDA for this purpose?
Still, this whole "we can't open the code" thing is a little silly. KiSS should at least be considering the possibility of opening their source code at this juncture. They're already beginning to face competition in the form of MPEG-4 enabled DVD players from Korea, Taiwan etc. These things are going to beat them on price, guaranteed. Meanwhile, domestic companies like Linksys have announced similar products for the U.S. market, and I can't see how Sony or Panasonic can be too far behind. Any of the established consumer electronics companies is easily going to shut these guys out of the retail channel for good, just on brand recognition alone.
If they open their source, they open up the possibility of "hacked" variants of their player, sure. But what's to lose?
- Nobody says they have to support a hacked version of their firmware, or even support the player at all once the end user flashes a hacked version.
- By opening their source, they gain extra goodwill and patronage from their core market (geeks)
- Closed source isn't going to prevent anyone from emulating their features. We're already seeing it happen. Who cares how 1337 they are when $50 Korean hardware does the same thing?
- It's unlikely that their firmware is going to be binary compatible with another manufacturer's hardware. In other words, you couldn't download a KiSS firmware and run it on a Taiwanese player unless it was hardware compatible, and I assume the hardware design could still be protected by various intellectual property laws. So open KiSS firmware helps to sell closed KiSS hardware.
- What the hell? Open the source, use all the MPlayer code you want, save on R&D!
Right now, I really could not in good conscience buy a KiSS product. If they opened their source tomorrow, I'd probably be jonesing for one even twice as hard as before.Breakfast served all day!
I don't intend to troll, but really, *who cares*? What's the big issue here? Mindshare? Proper credit? Counting ego coup? (Don't spout some "GPL violation" BS, we all *get* that rationale... but there has to be something more to make this news.)
So, here's my thinking: If the code in question is really as simple and trivial as claimed by the MPlayer folks, then why bother facing this Danish DVD group? Don't we expect that trivial code would be written in a nearly identical fashion independently? (I haven't seen the code, just going by what the MPlayer folks have stated about subtitling and the complexity.) And why bother? Is this a zealotry issue... trying to uphold the RMS/FSF flag for its own sake? Or is there something more?
What we've got here is a relatively obscure company (perhaps) taking a relatively small section of admittedly trivial code for their application. If this isn't shaping up to be a legal challenge for the GPL, then it's a waste of time! No good can come of this. My momma always said to "pick your battles", and I don't see the upside of this one...
Fighting every fight for its own sake, or even teh sake of the GPL, is plain stupid and inefficient.
Crap. It sounds like I turned into a flamebait at the end here. *sigh* God forbid Slashdot function as something other than a mental echo-chamber once in a while. We shall see how many steps to "-1".
Anyone recall the MySQL vs. NuSphere case? A few reminders:
GPL enforcement goes to court for first time in MySQL case
Affidavit of Eben Moglen on Progress Software vs. MySQL AB Preliminary Injunction Hearing
FAQ on MySQL vs. NuSphere Dispute
This was over 2-3 years ago. But again, the GPL itself, will not be "tested" in court, because violations and violators are easy to find, and prove. Once you violate the GPL, everything else above and beyond that, are U.S. Copyright violations (and in some cases, Lanham Act violations).
Most companies settle out of court, because the cost of public embarrassment would be much more damaging to them. I personally know, because I've got 4 active GPL investigations of my own going on three projects I actively contribute to (and one I am the primary maintainer of), and one company backed WAY down, once they realized the huge financial and public penalty for not complying with our license.
No company wants to take the GPL to court, mostly because if it gets that far, the developers/FSF/community have already done their homework, and can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, a violation. Penalties range from $30k/USD to $150k/USD per violation once the GPL itself is violated and rights to continue using it are stripped. For a site that provides "free downloads" of a product that might contain violating code, that can get quite expensive.
It is not, never has been and never could be illegal to give permission for someone to use your copyrighted work. Some might think it slightly unusual to grant permission on such a wide basis just out of the goodness of one's heart, but that is a matter for individual copyright holders.
What might be open to question is the revocability of such permission if the licensee breaches the conditions of the licence. However, the licence can only be breached by committing a deliberate act, and it would be next to impossible to prove that KISS had inadvertently breached it.
My guess is that if someone were to misappropriate GPL'ed software, the courts would rule that the copyright in the modified version belongs to the original copyright holders, who would then have the right to distribute that modified source code under the GPL. Ignore the GPL for a moment - we need to look at cases where someone has unlawfully distributed modified versions of "ordinary" copyrighted software {without the GPL} to determine what would be likely to happen.
If permission once granted is revocable, then plain old copyright law applies, exactly as though KISS were selling modified versions of Windows without permission from Microsoft. And if permission once granted is not revocable, then every EULA is invalid. That's why nobody wants to test the GPL in court. Either way, it jeopardises the whole concept of payware.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Oh, so all these proprietary commercial licenses are null and void until they've been tried in court? I can ignore any EULAs because they haven't been tried in court? Great!
FLR
Here's one thing I don't understand,as IANAL. Say the courts struck down the GPL as invalid, why is it SCO and KISS believe that, it instantly makes the source code public domain? Having the GPL invalidated pretty much invalidates thier right to use the code at all doesn't it?
Making something out of nothing : MD5 ("") = d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e
If you lose the court case and the GPL is upheld then you have to either withdraw the product and/or release all of the source code.
If you win the courte case and the GPL is found to be unenforcable then standard copyright takes over. In which case you've distributed copyrighted code without a valid licence and you'll get sued for damages. This outcome is the less likely of the two and would be challanged by every software company in the world (as it would probably make pretty much all software licences uneforcable).
So if you challenge the GPL in court you have the possible outcomes of loosing or loosing worse. Not a really appealing set of options that.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
I'll hazard a guess here:
The Manageing Director has no clue about this, and is going on what his developers told him.
Developers saw MPlayer as an easy solution to their problem and figured they wouldn't get caught, but were wrong, and are now desparately covering their arses.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.