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Bluetooth SIG Attacks Linux Bluetooth List
Karma Sucks writes "As reported in the latest free edition of LWN the Bluetooth Qualification Administrator has demanded that the Linux BlueZ project take down the highly-useful Bluetooth hardware compatibility list for Linux with the intimation that 'As neither of these products have been qualified using Linux it is illegal to make them available for public use'. This was apparently done at the request of a registered member of the Bluetooth SIG. Anyone know who this member was?"
This issue is almost one year old. The page under link was last modified in April.
Who hangs out near Belelvue, WA and would object to anything linux-related?
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
In what way exactly is it illegal to post a list of information like this, even with all the dumb laws the USA is passing these days...?
This happened back in March. it still sucks though.
w ww.holtmann.org/linux/bluetooth/devices.html
The list is available at: http://web.archive.org/web/20050310010832/http://
Chris "Ng" Jones
cmsj@tenshu.net
www.tenshu.net
I don't care. If there is no open-source driver for Linux, I simply won't buy the product. If they can live with that, I can do so too.
easy - cant they just rename it the "unofficial compatibility list" and put in some "this is nto official bla bla bla in small print" or better yet - tell the bluetooth peopel to get lost
Bluetooth products have to pass a test-suite. Not all of the software might have been tested or be able to pass the test.
:-P
I believe they still should be able to publish the list, they just should must avoid somehow to carry the "Bluetooth"-tag. Maybe Linux should just make up a fancy new protocol name like "Redbeard" or so for the protocol
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
What I'm curious about is what is this license agreement and did the guy running this list agree to it?
Anyone know who this member was?
CowboyNeal, of course. Any doubts?
Since when do you have to agree to a license to provide a commentary? I believe this to be fair use. Since when did we agree to waive our free speech rights?
I may be missing something obvious, as I never used this list before seeing this article, but I didn't understand the statement:
"...a registered member of the Bluetooth SIG complained about the non-qualified use of Bluetooth products on this page..."
The cynic in me ASSUMES "member" is Microsoft, but my inner cynic is sometimes wrong. My question is what "Bluetooth products" were on that page? To be "on the page" implies text or a list, not a device. Did the BlueZ page copy some table or something from a Bluetooth source? It might have helped if he had posted the whole complaint, not just this statement, but maybe he lawyer-beaten into only posting that much.
"Whether or not you're selling them makes no difference."
Selling what? As I understand it, this was just a compatibility list. What might they have been selling-yet weren't.
"The problem is due to the distribution of them from your Web site."
Again, what are "them" that they are distributing, but not selling?
"Please note that the use and distribution of non-qualified products is a violation of the Bluetooth License Agreement."
Once more, what products? This hints at calling things "Bluetoth" that are not, which would be a trademark issue, I guess. But what product are they talking about?
"As neither of these products have been qualified using Linux it is illegal to make them available for public use."
'Neither' means two 'products' have not been 'qualified' (by Bluetooth SIG, I gather), but what products and how are they illegal? I was looking for something like a claim to be "Bluetooth" without permission, but is that what the BlueZ list did? If so, how does that become a takedown instead of a rewording? For example, if they had said "The following devices are Bluetooth certified on Linux", they could just say "The following devices, which are Bluetooth certified under other operating systems, work under Linux too, though that is not certified by the Bluetooth SIG."
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law
His name was "Anonymous Coward"
No, not me. Wrong Anonymous Coward. One of the other ones.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this now render the issue moot? The reason the SIG was interested in taking the list down was because BlueZ wasn't qualified. Now it is (or rather, back in April it became) qualified, so what is the issue here?
The list still does not seem to be up, although I didn't look very hard for it. So is there something still blocking it?
I think the issue is this. There is a rigorous framework in place for how to qualify your devices, and the Bluetooth interest group is making a lot money conducting that qualification. In fact, it might be their main source of income. It's not necessarily a bad thing either if the testing is good and helpful, and the price for it is fair (I assume it's not, but anyway).
Having third party compatibility lists cropping up undermines the power the group has to force hardware vendors to pay for qualification.
Also, I guess the "illegal" part is bogus as far as the site owner goes. It is probably true that the makers of Bluetooth devices have a license agreement with the group that prohibits them from marketing their device as compatible with a specific environment without having gone through the qualification. The group might want to imply that it is illegal for those companies to be on that list, and therefore illegal to publish it.
It might also be that the site owner through involvement with BlueZ actually has signed an agreement to follow guidelines of the group, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
"Anyone know who this member was?"
What? Now we're a mafia?
Should someone do anything against us OSS/slashdot crowd, do we find the person's name and attack humiliate him/her? Think of the SCO guy. His name is associated with evil throughout the IT world now, thanks to sites like slashdot. He might deserve it, but most people dont follow up and check whether he's actually as wrong as we're made to think (slashdot articles have been wrong/exaggerating on more than one occasion).
A recent artice accused Rogers execs of having links to terrorists. This is an extremely baseless accusation based on phone calls to somewhere in the middle east. But this shows we're turning from being a bazaar to a bit like a mafia. (Open your sources.... or else). Do article moderators and editors know how much personal damage can they cause?
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
In response to this story I did a little research and sent a letter to the website's author with some quick legal analysis and a suggestion to seek actual legal counsel. For those who are interested, here is the quick and dirty part of the letter:
It would be helpful to get a copy of the full letter from SIG, but I gather their central claim is a trademark violation. On this issue you have several possible defenses. First, I suggest your strongest argument is based on the unavailability of a generic term by which to describe Bluetooth technology. This is similar to the situation Kleenex found it self many years ago... by using the term Kleenex to describe their product and never using the generic term (tissue), they destroyed their own mark. A company who owns a mark, even a patented mark, MUST provide a term that can be used to describe their product by the competition. I reviewed the entire SIG site and could find no generic term to describe Bluetooth.
Second you have an arguable fair use defense. Your site is making commentary on the products in question, noting that these devices will work in Linux. That is classified as criticism and protected under the First Amendment.
Only 120 characters... who can summarize their entire world understanding in 120 characters?!
Which I've now done, and the location should be obvious to any moderately sentient being. However, please be kind and get your copy from archive.org, because they've got shedloads more bandwidth than I have.
To those people who say 'there's no point' for one reason and another, the point is that if people get used to the idea that the only thing you achieve by taking down something like this is a whole raft of mirrors, we'll see far fewer such takedowns.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.