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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.
Can be found here. No ads, pleasant to read, all on one page! (Posting AC to avoid karma whore accusations).
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!
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.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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
'' 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. ''
The copyright holders could sell lets say 50 percent of their copyrights to Apple, which might be happy to pay a generous amount of money for them to have some ammunition against Cisco. The original copyright holders get a nice amount of money, they can still sue Cisco for copyright infringement, and Apple can do the same. The GPL status of the software wouldn't be affected. (If they sold _all_ copyrights to Apple, the software would be just as free, but only Apple could sue any GPL abusers, and of course Apple could build a non-free version itself).
I'm declaring war on stupid repetitive hyperbole. You'll be the first against the wall.
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
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
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?
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.