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Tracking GPL Violators
An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this week, open source developer Harald Welte made headlines when he personally served warning letters to 13 technology companies for alleged GPL violations. Now in a ZDNet interview, Welte explains the challenges behind tracking down these violators and how he persuades them to comply."
1. License software under GPL. Worry about who is using it illegally, devote efforts to tracking down violators and prosecuting them. 2. License software under BSDL. Sit back and relax with a beer.
hello dear sirs my name is jamesh i are india (bihar) can u guide me install red had linux 9?
that they had the sense to serve on SCO..
Please tell me they did..
Using and modifying GPL code is absolutely legal. What is illegal is distributing it only in binary form, and not allowing access to the modifications. This difference isn't very well stated in the article (yes, I read the article, and anyone who doesn't read past the first page won't see it on the second page), it simply says it is illegal to use the code.
There are some voices on Slashdot that claim that GPL violators are just like file sharers. (And that to treat them differently is hypocritical.)
Indeed, both discussions are about copyright. But they are also more fundamentally about fair use.
The GPL is based on the author's copyright and a very generous fair use license that promotes shared investment in the work. When a company takes GPL'd work and resells derived works without respecting the author's copyright, they are taking someone's work and reselling it without respecting the original author's rights.
Now to file sharing. Yes, this is also about copyright and fair use. However, it is rarely about restricting access to a work, it is about broadening that access.
The moral debate is simple: all technology, all creative work, all artistic creation and invention is the result of a continuous cultural stream that stretches back to the origins of our species. Every single creative act is a pebble placed on a mountain built by our ancestors.
Slashdotters tend to understand this intuitively. We don't like patents because they claim ownership of something we know to belong to us all. We don't like GPL violators because they take common property and resell it under false pretenses. We don't like DRM because it takes common property and fences it off. We tolerate file sharing and defend those who do it because we know that the alternative is cultural sterility, decay, and evetually extinction.
There is no contradiction here. Anyone who takes sacks of pebbles from the mountain and says "these are now mine" is a simple rogue, legalised or not, and we all know it.
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I've written many free software tools over the years. I've licensed these using the GPL, BSD licenses, and finally switched a couple of years ago to GPL for everything.
Why? There are several reasons:
1. I relicense the same source code commercially. This means companies pay for commercial licenses which do not have any GPL-like requirements. This is of course my right since I'm the author. It provides some nice income. Not possible with BSD licenses.
2. Other free software developers are given a competitive advantage when they use my GPL'd code. Commercial developers can choose to pay if they want to escape the GPL license. When I used BSD licenses, I was actually giving a competitive advantage to those who reused my source code in commercial products.
The GPL is a weapon, of course, and no-one likes being at the receiving end. But for any developer who has spent years (decades, even) writing open source, it's an excellent and far-sighted choice.
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If you make something and don't share it your in the wrong? Sorry but that doesn't work.
The whole twisted idea of trying to disassociate ownership from original works is a very selfish position.
Those pebbles that came off the mountain only did so because someone put the effort into doing so. If you want their pebbles you can meet their requirements or go get your own. You however do not have a right to take their pebbles just because you might have/could have/would have done it. Anyone who wants to take the effort/work of others without compensation is just a selfish bastard.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
PS Extinction is surely hyperbole no?
No, it's not. Many cultural artifacts: languages, forms of art, even technologies have gone extinct because they were unable to spread. Culture is like an organism, it's evolved together with our genome, and it can go extinct just in the same way.
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I used to publish documents under teh GNU GDL, the GPL for text http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-howto.html - but after actually reading it I found it had some very strange points that kind of limits "fair use" (freedom) as I instended. Now I use Creative Commons 2.0, a license I find more suited for the modern Internet.
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
"If companies are only using GPL-licensed software internally, they only need to distribute the source code to their employees."
Is he sure about that? First time I have heard this as a requirement.
all the best,
drew
http://zbcw.sourceforge.net/
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
PS Extinction is surely hyperbole no?
Not really. Entire branches of expression have been driven to extinction (or at least legal limbo and extreme obscurity) by restrictive copyright laws.
For example, look at the amazing breadth of derivative works based on recent and current books, movies and songs, which build on the ideas that the original works have generated and let us examine them from angles which the original authors may not have considered, and from hundreds of fresh and different viewpoints.
Oh, wait. That's called fanfiction, it's technically illegal (*definitely* illegal if you try to make money from it), and regarded very dubiously by the mainstream (yes, I know most of it is crap; most of any art on the internet is).
Copyright law has crushed the derivative work, and most people don't care - because they have bought into the myth that derivative works are "not creative", "just ripping off the original author", etc. So it's OK, they don't deserve protection.
Think of a book that's been published within the last 50 years. Any book. You will not be legally allowed to publish a derivative work of that book as long as you live. You will die before the copyright expires. Maybe the book will be in the public domain in time for your grandchildren to be able to produce art based on it - if they care enough. How inspired are you to comment on the topical issues of the early 1900s?
Sure, if you're lucky, maybe a copyright holder will allow you to publish a derivative work - if they like it, and usually only if they were specifically looking to extend their franchise. If, however, your work is a scathing refutation of the original author's opinions, or a long-dead author's estate is just being contrary, good luck with that. The law is on their side.
See the legal battle over The Wind Done Gone for a recent example. They only won because the work was deemed to be a "parody".
Even the big companies that donate to big OSS projects aren't going to donate $$$ to litigate specific GPL violations.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
"Personally I'm a prolific writer and programmer and I do think that I have the right to do what I want with my work, but within reason. If I can't maintain my source code, improve and invest in it, I should lose the rights to it."
Then copyright provides you with a way to do this: license your code under a "free-if-I-fail-to-maintain-it" license. There's nothing stopping you doing this.
"Property rights should, morally, be tied to stewardship. Take care of something, and we the people grant you the right to "own" it."
If you want to change the default law to make this happen, then you need to convince the rest of society that it's a good model. They don't get convinced that it's a good model if you're not respecting their rights and plundering their goods.
"So, if you use the public domain, how do you prevent people from abusing your work? By naming them when they take work without credit, by avoiding them and refusing to cooperate with them in any way, by expressing respect for people who share work freely and who give proper credit, and by gently trying to convince others to do so. "
That's never going to work.
Scenario: you write a successive UNIX derivative, and it is put into the public domain, then installed into a successful embedded product that is sold by the millions across the world.
You find that it includes your public domain work, entirely abused and not credited.
What do you do?
You complain, try to shame, etc.
What do they do?
Nothing, because nothing compels them to, and they continue to ship millions of this product, because all the people that like it, either can't hear you, or simply don't care.
At least with the backing of legislative statute (i.e. copyright law) you can _compel_ them to do something, with the foundation of hundreds of years of law and courts behind you.
"The best response is: "No, we don't. We use the public domain. So there.""
Very immature, and little wonder your opinions aren't taken highly.
Somehow, I suspect that the concept of property predates agriculture.
You don't even have to theorise on this. Study any pre-agricultural society and you will remark that there is an almost total lack of (a) personal property and (b) privacy. Tools are made as needed and discarded when blunt.
Why? Non-agricultural societies are almost always migratory (since they have to move to follow their food). Migration means walking and as any traveller knows, "property" just means extra weight to carry and lose.
It's much easier to re-sharpen a stick than to carry it around.
As for meat and teats... when a hunter kills a large animal in a society with no fridges, there is no way to "possess" the meat. It is either eaten, or it rots. You can salt and dry meat but that's already beyond the capacity of most simple societies. So what happens is that successful hunters share their bounty with their friends and relatives, and when they're less lucky, they hope to get some back. Not quite communism, but very close.
So yes, I'm quite certain that the concept of "private property" was invented at the same time as agriculture. No coincidence perhaps that this period of human history also saw the growth of the first large (and generally brutal) empires.
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The best response is: "No, we don't. We use the public domain. So there."
No, a much better response is: "Reasonable copyright laws, with durations and scope that actually maximize the public good, serve our purposes as copyright owners just as well as laws that are insanely restrictive and have uselessly long terms. GPL software authors would be perfectly happy with copyrights that lasted 28 years, or even less."
As for the argument that we should simply allow everyone to choose whether or not they want to share their changes to their code, rather than "enforcing" it through the GPL... either you're naive or a Microsoft et al shill.
There's nothing morally wrong, or inferior, about using the GPL, any more than there's something wrong with wanting to be paid for your work. Following your line of thought, you should also donate your physical labor to the public good as well, right? And, more specifically, donate your labor to your employer and then argue that you've donated it to the public good.
Developers use the GPL because they hope to get paid for their work. Not paid in currency, typically, and the payment isn't guaranteed by any means, but they do want to be paid by receiving improvements to their own work. The logic is: "I want to write X because I need X, but I don't have the time or resources to create it all by myself. Perhaps if I write half of it, producing something useful but not really complete, and publish the code under the GPL, others will contibute their time to help me complete it. And perhaps they'll even help me make a better X than I would have even if I had time."
Of course, you can do the same thing with public domain code, but if you use the public domain you run a much greater risk of not seeing any of the improvements.
The notion that you can successfully shame people into sharing is simply naive. In particular, it doesn't work well if the non-sharer has a large advertising budget and you do not.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Then you haven't though what happens when a big player takes your work and don't want to contribute back. A really big company won't care at all if you whine and moan about them not playing credit to you, and you soon will end with a scenario like that of the Unix wars (which lead Stallman to develope the GPL in the first place).
The coertion in the GPL is only to be used against the sharks who don't adhere to the rules and would damage the open, common pool.
Also I don't agree with GP assertion that public domain is libertarian. Closed, proprietary code is libertarian.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
In any case, he's eventually going to get bored, get sick, get too involved in his day job, die, whatever. Having the whole GPL licensing system depend on the voluntary efforts of one individual strikes me as a fragile setup.
1.) What pro-piracy articles? Provide a few links so I can read them and respond, as I don't remember reading any blatantly pro-piracy articles here.
2.) In general, people copying songs aren't trying to make money at it, while people abusing GPLed software are.
3.) This guy isn't going after individual infringers, unless a corporation is now considered and individual. RIAA is going after individuals who are copying songs for individual use, this guy is going after corporations violating the GPL to make money.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton