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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."
When I saw this story, I immediately thought of that simpsons episode where Homer has the internet startup, and Bill Gates tells his two goons to "Buy him out, boys"
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
It isn't a duplicate in this case. It even references the article that you point out. This provides more information, it isn't the same.
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..
It's easy... just tip off the BSA. Aren't they the organization that's supposed to enforce stuff like that?
There is a lot of violation of Open Source stuff. A lot of violation is being found on MorphOS where a lot of Open Source stuff is being used.
ixemul, libnix, gcc, binutils and other things and when asking for the source codes then you get a reply telling you that the sources got lost. But still the stuff is being worked on and put in the binary release of their OS.
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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I think you should read the article.
If you can't be bothered here are some relevant points:
What gives you the legal right to pursue the GPL violations? Most of the violations we're seeing are happening in the embedded market. They are running the Linux kernel and I have copyright on parts of the Linux kernel. In the cases that went to court, it was me as an individual copyright holder [against the company in question].
Some people have criticised the GPL for being business-unfriendly, what do you think? I totally disagree.
And, for the BSD fans in this thread:
How do you think the GPL compares with other licenses? It's a philosophical question. The BSD licence allows you to integrate and modify without giving back modifications, while GPL expects you to give back modifications. These are two philosophies of how you develop software. Which you chose depends on the project, for example, if you have a new standard and want it to spread quickly, it's better to use the BSD licence, rather than the GPL.
You sir, seem to be more of a troll than he does (and quite possibly an insensitive clod too)
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.
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.
Many companies which ignore the GPL don't understand the benefits open sharing of their code contributions would give them. It's important for us to communicate better how an open source development model helps everyone (an open code contribution may inspire others to contribute more, to fix bugs, and so on; it is much easier to maintain over version upgrades when it's in the main tree). The problem with the GPL is that it's not a tool of communication. We have focused too much on forcing people to do the right thing, instead of convincing them of the benefits of our approach.
We also need a generally accepted registry for public domain works so that it is provable who the first creator of a work is (that's also necessary as a defense to make sure other people don't claim copyright and sue people for using a work that's in the public domain).
I do value the copyleft effect of the GPL. I think its significance is overestimated, but it does have value. In spite of the arguments above, I think it is of enormous importance that we avoid a split between the copyleft and the non-copyleft camps. In the larger scheme of things, these differences of opinion are minor, and what is important is that we all support the goal of free content. So while I don't approve of the means in this case (GPL enforcement), I do approve of the end (more free content). Still, I ask you to consider putting your code in the public domain.
FFTA:
Q: Why is it important to stop people from violating the GPL?
Welte: You can use all the code out there for free, but if you do modifications you have to give them back to the community -- it's a fairness thing. If we allowed violations to become common, the system would be out of equilibrium. This would result in fewer contributions and it would have a large negative impact on the motivation of developers.
Reflecting this argument back on the file-sharing issue does not work, incidentally. American (Pop) Idol proves, if nothing else, that there are a lot of people willing to do just about anything for a shot to record professionally. Artists make little from their album sales; they make shit-tons from touring. The lion's share of album sales goes to the record company, which then spends it on ads telling you you're depriving the artists when you download music.
The music industry is never going to collapse just because songs are traded online; they'll just turn the screws harder on the artists who get them paid. Disillusioning the small percentage of OSS advocates who actually code by allowing their ideology to be violated is an entirely different story.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
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
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.
Harald Welte mostly operates within german legislation. He even said in the interview, that he goes after resellers rather than the OEMs, because the resellers are within german law.
And in german civil law, the loser pays. Or to be more exact: At the beginning of the process the demands of both parties are put on file (this is the so called Streitwert, the value of the suit), and at the end the resulting awarded damages are compared with the initial demands. The money you have to pay is depending on how much of your own demands got awared to you, and how much you have to pay to the other party. The cost of the suit is determined from the Streitwert (and the cost involves also the payments to the lawyers of both sides), and you pay the cost relatively to your payment to the other side.
This makes it rather risky to pull an SCO in a german court. If any SCO demands 1 billion Euros in a german court, the Streitwert will be at 1 billion Euros. And if SCO in the end gets awarded 10 Mio Euros, SCO would get 1% of the initial demand, so SCO had to pay 99% of the cost of the lawsuit. (In fact it's a little more complicated, this is Germany after all.)
But back to Harald Welte. He doesn't claim financial damage, so the Streitwert is rather low. He normally starts with an injunction requesting the other party to comply to the GPL and release the code in question or to stop infringing on his Urheberrecht (his Author's right to iptables/netfilter code according to the Berne convention), which amounts to stop selling the software or firmware.
A reseller then has to stop selling the product in question, because resellers almost never do have the source code. But they then can either sue the OEM for damages because of lost business or try to get the source code from the OEM and then open it to the public (or at least to the own customers). According to the GPL this heals the infringment. In the end it's the most easy thing for a reseller to press his OEM for the source code than to stop selling a product and even try to get all already sold stock back and destroy it. Only the company Sitecom tried to strike down the Injunction in question and lost in court, which uphelt the injunction. This was a 100% win for Harald, so 100% of the cost of this suit was paid for by Sitecom.