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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."
Richard Stallman seen stroking his beard amusedly.
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?
It was like pulling teeth to get the wifi accesspoint/routers GPL code released a few years ago, this is standard operating proceedure by Cisco. I remember the foaming at the mouth all over slashdot about that.
Anyways the WIP300 sucks bad.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Its iPwn3d.
At the end of the day, the only way in which different cases of infringement are fungible is if opposed parties agree to trade suit cancellations. They could hammer Cisco as hard as they want and Cisco's position vis-a-vis Apple would (probably) not be affected at all.
/. sense of the word.
On the other hand, it's a nice bit of karma. Er, but not in the
I am the one true god. However, as an atheist, I don't believe in myself. I guess I have a self-esteem problem.
Can be found here. No ads, pleasant to read, all on one page! (Posting AC to avoid karma whore accusations).
When Cisco sued Apple, there was no way Apple was guilty. And if they were guilty, it was ok because information wants to be free and we have a "right" to use other people's ideas without paying for them.
When an open-source "expert" announces that Cisco "might" have violated the GPL but has no court proceedings to back up his claim, Cisco needed to be fined trillions in punitive damages and be shut down.
I know this might be a radical concept, but if you RTFA, you will see that TFA attempts to make the tie. Essentially, the point is that Cisco is being hypocritical in accusing Apple over iPhone trademarks, while violating copyights on the Cisco's iPhone.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
If Jobs & co. had just trademarked the lowercase 'i' we could have bypassed this whole discussion. "a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i(TM)..."
It is not clear from the article if they mean "Linux the kernel" or "Linux the GNU/Linux OS", seeing as they talk about "couple of programs". However "Memory Technology Device" is mentioned and this is a Linux subsystem - so they may well mean the former. Of course parts of our userland may have been sucked in too, but that is still opaque...
IMHO, ignorance of the GNU GPL is no defence. We need a 1000 or so litigious lawyers on our side. I'd imagine that that'd sort out the common practice of code theft that the article hints at... Baah.
The iPhone trademark is what is at issue between Cisco and Apple. That has nothing to do with IP or Copyright,
Meh, Large companies would have you believe that Trademark, Trade Secrets, Copyright & Patents (along with other intangible or government granted monoopolies) all fall into the 'Intellectual Property' basket.
Oh, and I could have been referring to either Cisco or Apple with my comment. Apple's complained about people violating it's copyright/look'n'feel/whatever countless times. But seems to have absolutely no problem violating some small guy's copyright
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
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
I'm declaring war on stupid repetitive hyperbole. You'll be the first against the wall.
With network devices (Or anything actually) it's fairly easy to come up with a system to verify that you do indeed own a piece of hardware without actually keeping a paper trail of ownership. And Cisco already does this, actually.
It's called a serial number. Usually on the backside/bottom of the device, it's a unique number that can 'verify' that you have the device in-hand. Afterall, if you can recite it to them, you must have it right?
Also, MAC addresses are assigned to entities much like IP addresses are, and thus afaik are unique to each device, so that too would be a good way to figure out if you actually own the device.
And, the way to circumvent people from just posting it online is pretty easy too. If sopmeone in russia claims to have that serial number, and then the next day someone in kansas city does, it'd be pretty obvious that one or neither actually own it.
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.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
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
>it'd be pretty obvious that one or neither actually own it.
Having been bitten by that one before... lemme say... NOPE
We had a service guy using one of our serial numbers for another device to get replacement parts for it under warrantee. When ours needed the same parts, the manufacturer got a tad suspicious, and we had to fight hard in order to be able to get our part.
The GPL (v2) REQUIRES that a commercial distribution of the software as object EITHER be accompanied by the source OR by an offer, good for three years, to sell a copy of the source to ANY THIRD PARTY for no more than a nominal copying fee. (Non-commercial distributions, under some circumstances, have a third option of just forwarding the offer they got from upstream.)
Since they didn't distribute the source, in machine-readable form, with every iPhone, they must make (and live up to) the offer to EVERYBODY - not just their customers, not just to repurchasers of their customers' equipment:
Since they didn't distribute the source, in machine-readable form, with every iPhone, they must make (and live up to) the offer to EVERYBODY - not just their customers, not just to repurchasers of their customers' equipment.
Got it now?
Since they ALSO didn't make the offer they're already in violation, and have thus have no right to distribute the software and are liable for violation of the underlying copyrights. However, when someone is caught in violation by not making the offer, those enforcing the GPL will generally settle for letting them clean up their act by making the offer retroactively and providing source code under it.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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).
... 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.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Since they didn't distribute the source, in machine-readable form, with every iPhone, they must make (and live up to) the offer to EVERYBODY - not just their customers, not just to repurchasers of their customers' equipment.
Got it now?
Hmmm.... I'm not sure I agree with your optimistic, yet unlikely interpretation. I am not aware of a requirement that the written offer can be exercised by anyone other than an actual recipient of the binary. Furthermore, "any third party" is not the same as "every third party".
Oh, and as this post in this thread already pointed out, the Free Software Foundation's information about the GPL doesn't seem to support your position.
How can requiring that additional source code added by the licensee must be distributed along with the original source not be considered a demand? A GPL licensee is giving up their rights to keep their source code secret in exchange for being able to incorporate GPL'd code in their application.
You can argue about legal definitions all you want, but as a practical matter the GPL is indistinguishable in effect from a "licensing agreement" to those that intending to distribute derivative code.
If you look at the second link in that post you'll see that the FSF agrees with MY interpretation. The requirement is to give (sell at nominal copying fee) the source to anyone who asks.
The stated REASON for the requirement is to let anyone who got the binaries to get the source. But the requirement itself isn't dependent on the requester having the binaries.
It's like the militia clause of the second amendment: It states an important reason for the right. But it doesn't limit the right to those who are exercising it for that reason, or even to those who are QUALIFIED to exercise it for that reason. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
If you'll follow your own second link you'll see that the FSF agrees with my position. If the source wasn't included with the distribution, anyone can request it and it must be supplied.
The FSF goes on to state that the REASON for the right is for people who obtained the binaries to be able to obtain the source. But the right itself is not dependent on the requester having the binaries.
The vendor has the choice of distributing the source with the binaries or providing it (at no more than a nominal copying fee) to anyone who asks.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Et voila.
If you're slightly more specific and substitute "control how people write software" with "induce others to release their software freely", then . . . no, not at all. It's not ironic, and statements to the contrary are sophistic wordplay.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
BSD is just as evil as proprietary software. BSD is not a public good or a free license, it's as evil as any other form of unfree license. No one should use BSD software when there are real free licenses out there.
See how convincing that argument is? The GPL, at least in principle, increases the percentage of software that is released under terms permitting derivative works and largely unencumbered redistribution, as compared to BSD-style licenses. Therefore, in my opinion as in many others' opinions, it is the best tactic under current copyright law for promoting the basic goals of free software, even if a situation where no or limited copyright copyright exists to begin with is superior in theory.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
Exactly. The problem isn't "intellectual property" per se from a business standpoint, it's when lawyers and politicians start talking about "intellectual property" from a legal or policymaking standpoint.
http://outcampaign.org/
Cisco has a line of Fibre Channel switches called Cisco MDS. They are used for Storage Area Networks and provide FC, iSCSI and FCIP capabilities. The high-end series, 95xx, look pretty much like Catalysts 65xx (with FC interfaces, of course), and 92xx use 7200 chasis.
Those systems are povered by Linux, given, you have a SmartNet contract, you can download updates for them containing kernel with initd and rootfs. Moreover, by simply observing boot process, one can conclude, they are Linux-powered. However, Cisco doesn't provide a source code for them.
I've also heard (but this is not confirmed), that their main competitor in SAN market, Brocade, is also using Linux as a basis for their FabricOS. Did anyone checked that?
Uhm, Cisco is suing over IP, while this story is about IP... Two totally different things.
- These characters were randomly selected.
The GPL extends the rights you have by copyright law.
An EULA restricts the rights you have by copyright law.
You have no obligation whatsoever to accept the GPL, and if you don't you are still free to use the software as you seem fit. An EULA will try to tell you that you can't use the software unless you agree with it.
What the GPL does is to allow you to redistribute the software under certain conditions, something you have otherwise no right to do under copyright law.
What an EULA is to disallow some uses of the software, something you are otherwise free to do under copyright law.
I don't think it's anything that cynical. The GPL Violations project tends to do good work, at least here in Central/Western Europe. They've gone to quite a few companies, particularly those selling Linux-based electronics and PCs to the public, and said, "Look, you probably don't understand that you've violated the terms of this license. We just want you to provide the source code and then we'll leave you alone." And within a few weeks/months it's almost always available. End of story. My country's national health care system also had a brush with the GPL Violations group when they started rolling out ID cards for collecting benefits at the doctor's office and each doctor had a Debian-based card reading machine networked to the main server. The company the government contracted to do it was contacted, the GPLVp said you need to provide the source code, and now it's available to download off their site--all ~300mb of it. I don't think this guy is trying to get his name in the papers or score points for Apple or anything. He just wants the GPL to be taken seriously, especially by the big boys in the industry who save tons of money putting a free, already-developed operating system on their product, then don't abide by the rules of that product because they assume a free product has no usage rules attached to it. If you decide to enforce the GPL, you can't pick and choose who you're going to go after. You also have to understand that a lot of people read about open source in the newspaper and think it means public domain. I mean, if there's this much argument on Slashdot about what the clauses of the GPL signify, imagine how hard it must be for a businessman with only a superficial knowledge of programming who's managing projects to comprehend it.
As to Armijn Hemel not helping Cisco, it may be that he's just afraid Cisco will provide the source to the parts specifically mentioned by Hemel, but nothing else despite there being further violations. By intentionally not saying, "this and this are violating it," he's forcing Cisco to do its own audit of the code and establish what really is and isn't GPLed. That's not making a political point, it's being clever. It's also possible he really doesn't know. By the way, someone else earlier made a similar comment that Cisco doesn't have to release the source to its programs that it wrote, only the modifications to the operating system. The person who said that obviously has never had to do any linking to 3rd party libraries in their software. If I link to a GPLed (not LGPLed like libstdc++ and such, but GPLed like the GNU telephony libraries, which I wouldn't be shocked if I found Cisco using) library in my program then I cannot make mine closed. I don't know if there's any evidence Cisco used libraries or modules in this way, but that will come out eventually.
brandelf: invalid ELF type 'KEEBLER'
The moderator of the parent and GP post clearly has a strong grasp on the meaning of redundant. offtopic maybe, but redundant?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
IIRC, Apple says Safari, based on KHTML is being used in the iPhone, so I'd certainly love to see the code if only to know how apps for the iPhone are made. BTW, it looks remarkably similar to Nokia's latest browser featured in N-series smartphones - after all, it is Webkit based as well. Perhaps Apple even used Nokia codebase, who knows.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
These are embedded devices, so very likely use uclibc not glibc, and the only GPL parts will be the kernel itself.
The timing *is* susipcious though.. some nice anti-cisco rants just after they go after Apple for trademark violation.
Yet these groups *still* do nothing about the blatant GPL violation in the broadcom kernels (which are linux kernels released with huge proprietary precompiled binary parts, and of what source there is it's all marked with restrictive nonredistribution licenses).
You forgot to add that any of the usual commercial licenses is a minefield as well.
With proprietary code licensed from big companies B and C you can as well end up in a situation where you violate one of the licenses.
This is why the creation of the GPL/3 is dangerous because it can result in split code bases unless people unifiedly accept that the GPL/3 is an improvement of GPL/2 or the opposite.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
copyright != trademark
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
Rudolph is still under copyright. "Little Drummer Boy" might also be under copyright, I don't know about that one. Silent Night and Jingle Bells (I think) are old enough that their copyrights have expired. Now to check Wikipedia to see how correct I am! (5 minutes later) Rudolph is copyrighted. Drummer boy is copyrighted if it was renewed (which I assume it would be). The other 2 are not.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Well, I'll hardly deny that the terms were chosen to have positive connotations. If you like, you could call them propaganda or whatnot. But given the definitions of the terms as commonly used in the context of the self-styled "free software" movement, the GPL still advances the goal of free software without irony.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
I originally offered to do that, but the rep didn't want to go that way (worried that I would have a picture,but not the device anymore somhow, I guess).
By that point I was a tad miffed, so we made sure to use the onsite support option that we paid for =-)
If you'll follow the second link you'll see that the FSF agrees with my position. If the source wasn't included with the distribution, anyone who has the written offer can request it and it must be supplied.
Who has the written offer? People who have received the binaries from you, either directly or indirectly.
If you commercially distribute binaries not accompanied with source code, the GPL says you must provide a written offer to distribute the source code later. When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. This means that people who did not get the binaries directly from you can still receive copies of the source code, along with the written offer.
So unless you've been given the binary, they don't have to give you the code.