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Bell, SuperMicro Sued Over GPL
Markus Toth writes "The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has filed two more copyright infringement lawsuits on behalf of the developers of the Linux-based BusyBox utility suite. The suits allege that Bell Microproducts and SuperMicro Computer each violated redistribution stipulations of the GNU General Public License (GPL).The Bell Microproducts suit pertains to the Hammer MyShare NAS (network-attached storage) appliance, which is sold by Bell's Hammer Storage division. I was the one who alerted the busybox developers about the GPL violation after providing a script for disassembling the firmware and instructions about mounting the contained initrd. As you see in my first post at the gpl-violations.org mailing lists where I posted all mails that I sent to and received from Hammer Storage, they refused to provide me the GPL sources several times. Looks like they will have to provide them soon; I will post any updates in the nas-central blog."
I assume someone had to go and evaluate the software for inclusion in the product. Is is that hard to whack a tarball onto a server and give out the link.
We hear so many of these large companies have problems with this. Why?
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For those that use this as a reason to NOT use the GPL...
What would have happened if they instead used a copy of WinNT4.0 without paying Microsoft? Microsoft would want blood, and would extract it via the BSA.
The creators of Busybox just want you to host the changes you've done to it. They wanted no money.
In other words: What would $proprietary_software_manufacturer do?
Good work, Mr. Toth.
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Can anyone shed any light on why companies repeatedly do this with Busybox?
I can sort of understand their motivation (if not their ethics/commercial sense!) if they've got a highly modified Lunix kernel where they've made extensive changes to the networking stack to enable their "unique" feature or similar, but why with Busybox? Surely the path of least resistance is just to make the tar ball available (or realise, you've stuffed up, and start making the offer and send any that ask the tarball to play catch-up). Are any of these guys really making proprietary improvements with amazing IP involved to Busybox? It seems an unlikely place to do it..
Maybe they've ported it to the latest tiniest CPU, but they still get a time to market advantage their (particularly versus producing Busybox like functionality from scratch!), but even that seems unlikely to be worth fighting hard when you'll quickly realise you'll lose.
Why go to the hassle?
I suspect that this probably boils down to default policies and a lack of understanding of the GPL more than anything, sadly. By default most companies would have a "We don't make available ANY of our IP unnecessarily" and that hasn't yet gelled with the GPL. No one wants to stand up and make the call that compiling Busybox didn't involved much of the companies IP, and releasing the source is an obligation.. The people involved with the IP aren't the same people that make the 'legal' calls and so companies come across with these silly positions..
--Q
The myshare source files are made available under various open source code licenses, including the GNU General Public License (GPL). Please review the license terms included with each download for the rights, obligations and restrictions associated with the open source file.
Installation instructions
title / description download posted release notes
Myshare Home v.1 GPL Source Code
47.6 MB 06/11/08
Myshare Home v.2 GPL Source Code
158.1 06/11/08
Myshare Office v.2 GPL Source Code
220.8 MB 06/11/08 Looks like they just got them up last week (apparently 5 months after the GPL-Violations post).
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
I didn't realize that the GPL allowed you to deny source code to someone on the basis of poor grammar or the use of a pseudonym. Oh wait...
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Yeah, but if you're going to use the cheap route and just use GPL'd code, why not just put a tarball up on your website?
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Fear that your competition will download it and leap-frog all "your" development "efforts" by using "your" code in their device.
I'm serious. If they UNDERSTOOD the process, they would ANNOUNCE that it was GPL'd and that anyone who wanted to could modify it or add features, etc.
Just like LinkSys found with their wireless routers.
1. They know they're violating the GPL and just want him to get lost
2. They don't know what the GPL is, that they're using GPL'd products, that they don't read the GPL right, they don't understand who he is, why it's any of his business, why he thinks he's got any right to their products source code and so on.
In the latter case, good communication skills that presents your case in a serious, professional and understandable manner that makes them realize their error or at least begins a closer investigation of the issue may be an advantage. Besides, it looks to me like his legal skills are severely lacking: As you see in my first post at the gpl-violations.org mailing lists where I posted all mails that I sent to and received from Hammer Storage, they refused to provide me the GPL sources several times. Looks like they will have to provide them soon No, they do not. They can withdraw the product, pay any fines but they will never have to provide any source unless they want to. Personally I wish they'd take a more RIAA-ish approach, have each author sue for 150,000$ each. That should stop GPL violations really really quick.
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The GPL only restricts your freedom in a way similar to laws that prohibit slavery are restricting your freedom to take slaves. The GPL only takes away your freedom to take away the freedom of your users and the original authors of your code.
What about all this guff about the appliccability of an EULA with commercial software? What about the fuzzy DRM or activation of software (XP was said to be given a crack to remove activation when people at the time complained about it, so that people would accept activation. We may find out if they do this, but what's the legal jig if they don't?).
The only place where GPL is "fuzzy" is where it gets bundled or where it gets a derivative. And that's ENTIRELY your legal definition of laws defined to cover books and music (which are inherently Open Source) being stretched to cover binary software (which is Closed).
Fix your laws.
...One idiot manager forgetting to put code up. One asshole GPL guy. Suddenly you have a lawsuit... I seem to remember noting that letters were sent requiring compliance, and failure to respond to them was the trigger for the lawsuit. These guys ain't the RIAA, BSA, etc who blast their way in demanding restitution, they're blokes who've seen their code used and when politely reminded the users of their requirements have had no response.Mind you, if I was ever to find any of my code turn up in something like Windows, you can bet that I would instantly fire a lawsuit against Microsoft instead of negotiation - only because of their hypocrasy: they come down hard (via the BSA) on infringers so they shouldn't expect any leniency from me.
Or, I can develop my own software, and maintain my competitive advantage over my competitor.
Anyone who produces products has to decide what is more valuable - being able to use free software from the community, or being able to keep your software secret. If all you are going to add to the software is something that anyone else could create without much effort (i.e., software is not your key differentiator) then open source is the way to go.
But if you're going to make a massive improvement to whatever software you might take, something that is going to cost you a lot of money to develop (and would thus cost a competitor lots of money to develop), it makes the most sense to keep it to yourself.
Put more simply, a product that is 90% open source software from the community and 10% improvement is probably best released as open software - you get 90% for the cost of 10%. But a product that would be 10% software from the community and 90% software you develop yourself, it makes more sense to also redo the 10%. Trading away 90% for 10% would just be a bad business decision.
paintball
Oh really? How? The terms of the GPL are very clear, and people keep getting sued because they persist making up their own rules instead of following the actual rules. The GPL is only effective because the risk of lawsuits is real.
Many companies are adopting OSS as a means of rolling out custom products faster. It is easier to use something that already exists rather than rebuilding it themselves. What invariably happens is that along the way, is that some engineer decides to make a modification to a package in order to make it fit their unique needs (usually without authorization from the legal dept). Next thing you know you have a product that is heavily dependent on some customized OSS package that was never supposed to be used in such a capacity. Now the company is forced to turn over software that they invested in and are exposed to risk of litigation because of a breakdown in the dev process.Oh, cry me a river! If your company can't get its act together, then it's best for everyone that your company's competitors---who actually do follow the rules---eat your lunch.
Now I am not saying that companies should be able to rape OSS projects for free development workIn effect, that's exactly what you are saying.
but there has to be a balance.Why? Between what extremes? What would be the impact?
I think the FSF and the Gnu people should work out some sort of process where corporate customizations can be evaluated for context and value of the original package. And maybe have a source review process where the OSS developer can review what was added without exposing trade secrets of the corporations trying to use the OSS.What? Who would do the evaluation? How do you judge "value"? Who is going to bear the cost of this process? Why are trade secrets being intermingled with GPL-covered code? What's would the BusyBox gain by doing this? What would society gain?
The FSF and the GNU people have worked a lot of things out. They created the rules that leveled the playing field for all of us. Those rules are codified in the GPL. You apparently don't like the rules, and whine when they are enforced.
I think it is insane to treat corporations as the enemy.Red Hat isn't the enemy. MySQL isn't the enemy. Ingres isn't the enemy. Google isn't the enemy. Microsoft is an enemy, but only because they have a history of trying to screw, well, everyone (and there's no credible reason to believe that they've stopped). The "enemies" are those who persist in acting selfishly to the detriment of all of us. If anything, I'd argue that the BusyBox developers have been too lenient: Linksys routers (to my knowledge, which is a bit out of date) still aren't shipped with copies of the GPL included.
OSS developers should be working with Corporations not suing them.They are. Many work for corporations. Many are corporations.
This is the sole reason I release all my code under BSD license. I want people to use my productsThen the BSD license is a good match for your goals. Good for you. Not everyone values fame as highly as you do. People who release software under the GPL generally do so either to spread the freedoms that the GPL provides, or because they want to modify and re-distribute software that is already covered by the GPL. I see no reason to prejudice the latter group by letting Bell, SuperMicro, or anyone else get a free pass.
Being a corporation has nothing to do with it.
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