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Expert Says Cisco's iPhone violates GPL

Posted by samzenpus on from the take-that dept.

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."

6 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. What an effing minefield by Kris_J · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:What an effing minefield by rnapier · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. Single page version of the article by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Can be found here. No ads, pleasant to read, all on one page! (Posting AC to avoid karma whore accusations).

    1. Re:Single page version of the article by debilo · · Score: 5, Funny
      (Posting AC to avoid karma whore accusations).

      Oh, get out, you're such a sympathy whore.
  3. Re:Richard Stallman... by PunkOfLinux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
  4. Re:Anyone who owns one of these phones ask? by hp48 · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    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.html #GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic>
    and
    http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html #WhatDoesWrittenOfferValid>