Slashdot Mirror
First US GPL Lawsuit Heads For Quick Settlement
DeviceGuru writes to tell us that the first lawsuit centered around the GPL seems to have been quickly resolved outside of the courtroom. Monsoon Multimedia was quick to admit that they had violated the GPLv2 in their modified BusyBox code and will soon be releasing the source to come into full compliance with the license.
Victory!!! ^_^
1. Violate GPL
2. Get sued and get massive publicity for your little device that's actually kinda cool, then settle
3. Profit!
While it would have been better had they not violated the GPL in the first place, but it is nice to see that Monsoon is able to admit their mistake and release the code according to the license. Too bad most companies are happy to fight it out in the courtrooms forever, or pay people off, than to stand up and admit when they were wrong.
Ignorance is the Agent of Fear; Fear Is the Agent of Violence - >1
Monsoon Multimedia was quick to admit that they had violated the GPLv2 in their modified BusyBox code and will soon be releasing the source to come into full compliance with the license.
I hate to sound like a pessimist, but this sounds like nothing but a win for Monsoon. Number one, there's no mention of any cash payout, and number two, they get a shit-ton of free advertising for doing the "right thing".
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
It is too bad, in some ways, that it didn't go to court. Personally, I will sleep much more soundly when there is a precedent set which upholds the GPL as legally valid.
this sounds like nothing but a win for Monsoon. ... there's no mention of any cash payout, and number two, they get a shit-ton of free advertising
It's another win for software freedom. We get their changes or they get hammered. The thing being advertised is that free software can be and is used for business. No one had to waste money on lawyers and everyone is happy.
For their reputation, it's a wash. Monsoon's reputation has been damaged by their original behavior but the settlement goes a long way to repairing that. The reputation enhancement they get from using free software is well deserved because free software has a well earned reputation for quality.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
While it's good that Monsoon's finally agreed to uphold the GPL agreement I was rather hoping that they'd hold out, if only to establish precedent for future actions.
I guess. Is a precedent really necessary? I mean the "GPL hasn't been tested in court -- it might be an invalid license!" makes for great anti-GPL FUD, but when you get down to it there is no reason to believe the GPL would be invalid. There are thousands of licenses out there that have never been tried in court, and with most of them there would be no point.
This may be the first GPL lawsuit, but it is hardly the first GPL-related incident with lawyers involved. The fact is that most companies cave immediately when faced with the facts of their GPL violations. Before now nobody has even wanted it to get to the point of a lawsuit being filed, much less letting the facts be tried by a jury. I think it's safe to say that most of these companies' legal departments regard the GPL as a sound license, and getting it ruled invalid as unlikely (and detrimental, since without the GPL they would have no license to use the code at all).
The closest we've come to a company actually fighting the GPL in a court of law was SCO who claimed it was unconstitutional of all things. Nobody else seems to be crazy enough to want to fight the GPL at all.
So a precedent would be nice simply for being able to say "the GPL has been tested in court and was ruled to be a valid license" to silence the FUDmeisters, but practically speaking it's not necessary to protect GPLed code.
The enemies of Democracy are
I know, far fetched. But still, I love a good conspiracy theory.
THE FIRST US GPL CASE TOOK TWO YEARS TO SETTLE
http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20050225223848129
A.) Hire a lawyer and fight a court case you may or may not loose.
or
B.) Just release the source which costs you nothing
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
It has an extreme likelihood of being legally sound and valid, and companies (and everyone else, really) know that - that's why they settle so fast in the first place.
Let's not forget that GPL settlements are usually much nicer than 'normal' copyright settlements.
Example: Violate Microsoft's copyright on some code, bundle it up in an executable, and start distributing it (heaven help you if you actually sell it). Think the settlement that Microsoft will offer you will be anywhere near as amicable as "Share your changes back to the rest of us." ?? Not on your life.
The fact that the GPL hasn't needed a legal confirmation gives testament to its simplicity and strength. These waters are filled with some *very* dangerous sharks that have had plenty of time to attack. It seems our shark cage is made of some pretty stern stuff.
The reason why no sane company will challenge the GPL is very simple, even if you win you lose. As soon as you have removed the GPL hurdle you then have the nightmare of copyright law to face. The GPL does not remove copyright its a usage agreement, so if the "agreement " is annulled in court then the code falls under well tested copyright law and thats even worse to deal with.
Indeed. This company was also informed months ago by a user that had requested the code, unfortunately with no result. After discussing the GPL issues, Monsoon's rep basically started accusing the users' of illegally decompiling their source (in order to find the violation) and EULA violation etc etc. When told that there was no EULA if you download the source, he basically said "OK, well then we'll stick one in the download, or embed it in the binary so that you can't get around it." This shows that they had very little interest in showing the code, as their attitude towards their GPL obligations at the time was basically "we'll get to it, sometime, and we're not telling you when." Here's a bit of Monsoon's commentary in the forums pre-lawsuit:
Seems to me that some of you have just come out blatantly admitting you are reverse engineering the firmware - or trying to. How should we handle this?
I had posted the an article up on slashdot at around the time the forum debates were taking place, but unfortunately it never made it past the firehose (and I assume that is has now disappeared since it was rejected). However, the same rep was involved in a debate with me, and was spouting the same BS. His question was "well, what is the opinion of slashdot on breaking the EULA and reverse-engineering our code." I answer that it would really depend on the context, particularly whether the code should have been visible in the first place, and that the use of strings does not qualify as reverse-engineering. He continued to insist that "having reverse-engineered stuff in the past, I know what I'm talking about, so it's just your opinion that strings doesn't count." etc etc
All in all, their attitude - or at least of this rep - has been an offensive defensiveness (aka justify their actions by attacking those of others). I'm hoping that along with having the issues settled he now has an understanding of how the GPL works, but I'm sure he'll probably continue along with the mistaken assumption that his company was never in the wrong, and that this whole thing is the fault of those darn free-software people.