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Expert Says Cisco's iPhone violates GPL
Stony Stevenson writes "Even while Cisco Systems is suing Apple for violating its iPhone trademark, an open-source enthusiast is accusing Cisco itself of infringing copyright in the same product.
From the article: "Cisco has not published the source code for some components of the WIP300 iPhone in accordance with its open-source licensing agreement, said Armijn Hemel, a consultant with Loohuis Consulting and half of the team running the GPL Violations Project, an organization that identifies and publicizes misuse of GPL licenses and takes some violators to court."
Can be found here. No ads, pleasant to read, all on one page! (Posting AC to avoid karma whore accusations).
Did anyone who purchased one of these phones ask for the source? They don't have to put the source out there for the general public.
Actually, according to the GPL, if they don't provide the source with every phone then they DO have to give it to anyone in the general public upon request - until they've sold or otherwise "distributed" the last one and for a period of time thereafter.
(You never know who ends up with the black box containing the object code, after all, and writing the GPL so it would require successive box owners to maintain a paper trail of ownership in order to obtain the source code would have subverted its purpose.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Did anyone who purchased one of these phones ask for the source? They don't have to put the source out there for the general public.
l #GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic>l #WhatDoesWrittenOfferValid>
Actually, according to the GPL, if they don't provide the source with every phone then they DO have to give it to anyone in the general public upon request - until they've sold or otherwise "distributed" the last one and for a period of time thereafter.
Actually, according the the GPL, they don't. They just have to give it to anyone who uses the binary. However, most of the time anyone in the general public could be a user, but that's not assured.
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.htm
and
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.htm
Argh. When will people learn this? The GNU GPL is not a "licensing agreement", it's a license. It's a one-sided declaration that gives to the licensee rights they would not otherwise under the copyright law have (ie. the right to redistribute the software under some conditions, spelled out by the GPL). It doesn't demand anything at all in exchange, and the licensee does not need to "agree" to it or "accept" it for it to have effect (and not accepting it wouldn't make much sense, since it only gives additional rights).