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."

Comments

What an effing minefield

[Kris_J]

Business and innovation are getting completely strangled by all this IP rights cr^H^H stuff. Is it actually possible to produce anything without setting yourself up to be sued by someone who better understands how the law "works" than you? It's gotten to the point where any business needs a lawyer first, and accountant second and a functional business model an optional third. Can anyone identify the date that making products ceased to be about how good your product was and became more like a poker game where you win if you can raise the stakes higher than the other players can afford?

Re:What an effing minefield

[wall0159]

While I basically agree with your comment, I don't really think this is the time to make it.

I haven't RTFA but, in general, if someone gives you something with conditions then it's reasonable to expect you to understand and honour those conditions - otherwise, don't take it in the first place!*

In this case, Cicso has (according to the summary) used GPL code, and hasn't fulfilled it's share of the bargain. It doesn't sound like a business "getting completely strangled by ... IP rights" to me!

*I think the GPL is different to an EULA... (my personal bias shining through)

Re:What an effing minefield

[rnapier]

Note all the parts of the article, however:

* The article misrepresents the GPL by stating: "The GPL license requires the company to publish the code that it develops for the phone." This is not true; GPL requires that modifications to GPL code be released, not that code developed for a GPL platform be released. Such confusions are exactly why it is a minefield out there. Even if you're in compliance, you get accused of not being so.

* Hemel has not actually identified any code that is in violation (according to the article, though it also says he's identified the MTD as being in violation). As he says, "I'm not going to do their work for them." But without some clear identification, this becomes a fishing expedition. He says "you're not in compliance" and /. expects the company to prove the negative. Minefield #2.

* Cisco, as noted by the article, was "very open to his report, [Hemel] said. The company subsequently fixed omissions on a few products that Hemel identified." Every indication is given in the article that Cisco has worked with Hemel in good faith to ensure GPL compliance. This is very different from Apple's announcement of an apparently violating trademark while literally in the middle of negotiations over whether they could use it. Regardless of the merits of either, comparing the two is absurd. They have nothing in common except a vague "IP violation" umbrella.

* As Hemel notes in the way of a hunch, large companies often acquire code from partners, acquisitions, and contractors. Ensuring that none of these sub-parties has violated GPL is a significant burden, and in most cases impossible to do 100%. Minefield #3. Companies should be judged for their good faith in these situations and particularly how they react when problems are discovered. Nothing in this article indicates that Cisco has behaved except in good faith.

The original poster was quite correct that the GPL is a minefield. The fact that you often know when you're entering it (unlike software patents) does not remove the minefield. The only way to avoid the minefield is to completely avoid GPL platforms and code, or to GPL absolutely everything you produce. If you wish to work somewhere between those two poles (which Linux seems to encourage), then there are going to be some legal issues to watch out for, and legal issues that don't have really clear answers because the GPL is unlike any other "license agreement" that came before.

The good news is that the GPL creates exactly the kinds of problems for propriety-software companies that RMS wanted it to cause. The bad news is the the GPL can be a bit of a minefield for proprietary-software companies.

Re:Richard Stallman...

[PunkOfLinux]

Ok, to clarify things - the only thing they HAVE to give people is any modifications to programs licensed under the GPL. If they modified the Linux kernel running on this (which they most likely did) then, yes, they need to release that. If they wrote a custom app for this purpose, that does not need to be released.

Re:Oh Slashdot

[Ungrounded Lightning]

When Cisco sued Apple, there was no way Apple was guilty...
When an open-source "expert" announces that Cisco "might" have violated the GPL...

Please note that Slashdot posters are not a homogeneous mass. Different claims are typically posted by different people with different opinions.

Also please note that there are different types of "IP" involved in the differing infringements:
  - In the Apple-Cisco dispute it is a trademark issue. (Last news I saw makes it look like Cisco had let the trademark lapse - which leaves it open to the next claimant.)
  - In the Cisco-GPL dispute it is a matter of whether Cisco failed to abide by copyright licensing terms, along with an attempt by a party to whom those terms grant rights to require performance.

Maybe true, but irrelevant

[tkrotchko]

The article implies a linkage that isn't there.

iPhone is a trademark dispute between Apple and Cisco.

The other appears to be a vague accusation the Cisco didn't abide by a usage restriction (not related to apple in the least) on source code....

I mean, perhaps this could be considered ironic, but irony is not a legal challenge and in any case, even if the GPL has been violated, it has no bearing at all on the case between Apple and Cisco.

I'm not a big fan of the way either of these companies use their legal teams, but you don't have to be a lawyer to realize that Apple is wrong here. They gave away their entire negotiating position when they announced iPhone before securing the rights to the name. They either pony up what Cisco wants, or choose a new name. It's not that difficult.

Sorry, wrong:

[Ungrounded Lightning]

... the only thing they HAVE to give people is any modifications to programs licensed under the GPL. If they modified the Linux kernel running on this (which they most likely did) then, yes, they need to release that. If they wrote a custom app for this purpose, that does not need to be released.

Sorry, not true.

If they have a stand-alone part that is unchanged they still have to distribute the source of it.

If they have stand-alone part they modified they have to license their modifications under the GPL and distribute the whole part's source (not just the deltas).

The only thing they can avoid *GPLing and distributing source for is a stand-alone part that they wrote from scratch - and then (since it's a single software load rather than a distribution containing clearly separable components) only if the underlying code was licensed under the LGPL rather than the full-blown GPL.