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."

Comments

How stupid can you get?

[Marcion]

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?

Re:How stupid can you get?

[nebenfun]

Laziness, ignorance of the law, confusion regarding the GPL, budget issues, etc...

The usual suspects...

Re:How stupid can you get?

[Waffle Iron]

The GPL isn't an easy to read document

From this I presume that you have never tried to read a typical redistribution license for a commercial software library.

Re:How stupid can you get?

[Todd Knarr]

What's so hard to read about the GPL? It's a whole lot easier to read and comprehend than your average commercial software license. If a company's lawyers are expected to routinely understand complex contracts running close to a hundred pages of dense legalese, why should they have any trouble whatsoever with the GPL?

Re:How stupid can you get?

[drinkypoo]

The GPL isn't an easy to read document

Reading is hard, yo! they have like, long words 'n shit!

Seriously, the GPL is about as simple as it gets. It has to be written in legalese so it's going to be a bit obfuscated no matter what, but come on. It's actually in some of the plainest English I've seen in a legal document.

Of course, you do have to understand some technical terms to read it, and people have deliberately fucked around with the meaning of those terms, and tried to get around the GPL in other ways, so now we have a new version. (Or do we? Is that thing out or what? Was the plan for the GPLv3 to dither until no one cared if it was changed all along?)

That is part of the reason why a lot of companies work with BDS Licenesed code, there are less legal reprocussions from using it.

Or, you know, BSD licensed code. Go fingers, cutwhatchyalike. Seriously though, there's no nasty legal repercussions to GPL code if you just make the whole thing GPL. It's when you start closing parts of it that you have problems. Of course a lot of companies don't want to operate that way. But the cost of saving all that time is helping others save time. You can still differentiate on the copyrighted parts of the product (case design, web interface, et cetera.)

Re:How stupid can you get?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are both somewhat right. MySQL has an exception in their licensing policy that allows closed-source PHP applications to use MySQL.

However, their general policy is as follows: the MySQL client library (which you need to link to, to talk to the server) is GPL'ed, so it can only be used in a GPL'ed application. If you want to use it in a non-GPL application, you need to obtain a license from MySQL AB. MySQL supports many more languages/interfaces than just PHP, so this is a real concern.

So although you are right in saying that you can create a closed-source application using MySQL if you are using PHP, the other guy is right in saying that in general you cannot use MySQL in a closed-source application without obtaining a license from MySQL AB.

Re:How stupid can you get?

[Todd Knarr]

Odds on the developers understand the GPL and it's obligations completely. But the packaging and distribution of the product isn't handled by the developers, it's handled by Marketing and Sales. And those guys probably don't even know the software has a license attached, they've got no clue what all went into their software, and they likely don't think they ought to consult with mere software developers about how they can market the product. And they probably didn't ask Legal for an opinion, since it's "their" software and they can (in Marketing's world) do whatever they want with it. Customer Support's likely a division of Marketing, so when the initial e-mails came in they got handled by people with that attitude.

And then one day the package with the letter on a lawyer's letterhead with all the court paperwork arrived, and it went straight to Legal, bypassing Marketing entirely. And Legal, being sensible people, asked the obvious questions of the obvious people. Marketing may ignore the engineers, but Management tends to listen to the lawyers.

For those that use this...

[Creepy Crawler]

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?

Re:For those that use this...

[Creepy Crawler]

It's only restrictive depending if you are a coder vs end user.

If Im an end user, I can install it anywhere, copy it anywhere, give it to my friends without worry, hack it.... The list goes on.

Most of the restrictions only exist to ensure community efforts. After all, you got it for free, so submit your changes you sell for free.

Re:For those that use this...

[gstoddart]

Because proprietary software producers would be just as bad, or likely worse, does not mean that the GPL is always the best solution, since it is still a restrictive license.

Well, then if you don't like the license, don't use the software. Using GPL software against the terms of the license because you couldn't find any other free code to use is hardly an excuse.

If you can find BSD or public domain code that allows you to re-use it and not have to write it, go ahead. If you can't, then either write it yourself, or quit whining that it's unfair you can't use the GPL stuff without adhering to the terms because it cramps your business model.

A lot of companies just figure they can have the best of both worlds -- get the OSS stuff because it already does most of what they want, and then treat it as proprietary software they won't tell you anything about.

As the GP said -- this isn't about software released under the GPL or if people should use it. This is about companies trying to get something for free.

Cheers

Re:For those that use this...

[gstoddart]

I still see this as a reason not to use GPL, preferring instead to use BSD-style licensed software or public domain software whenever possible.

Again, I'd say this isn't a problem with the GPL.

It's a problem with commercial entities trying to use the GPLd software without abiding by the rules.

If you can find some BSD/public domain code which does what you need, fine. If you can't, that doesn't mean you should be able to just take the GPL software -- it means you should write your own.

I don't really see a problem with companies avoiding GPL software because of the license. That doesn't reflect badly on the GPL, it reflects badly on companies who are trying to do an end-run around the license.

Cheers

Re:For those that use this...

[cparker15]

In other words, you have double standards. You want to have your cake and eat it, too. You want to leech off of the community (by using its code, making money from it, and not contributing back). The only thing the GPL restricts you from doing is keeping your changes to yourself if people ask you for them.

Don't be greedy.

Ok, go ahead, mod me as a troll. It's the truth.

Why NOT hand out the source? Its an app.

[quarrel]

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

Better late than never

[RingDev]

From the download page on their site:

myshare Source Files

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

Re:Better late than never

[RingDev]

Which goes to show: a lawsuit is far more powerful than the saber rattling of an anonymous e-mailer with bad grammar.

Just think, with proper grammar and some respect, Markus might have been able to motivate Mr. Vang to be a bit more interested in meeting the requirements of using GPL code. This whole thing might have been resolved with out lining the pockets of more lawyers.

-Rick

Re:Understandable response...

[m.ducharme]

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...

Fear.

[khasim]

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.

Re:Fear.

[LehiNephi]

If another company uses your code to make their product better, they're still bound by the GPL. Thus, once you have their source code in hand, you're in a nice position to leapfrog their development.

Re:Fear.

[strabes]

And that's exactly why open source is so powerful.

Re:Fear.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

And that's exactly why open source is so powerful. No. That's why GPL'ed code and other share-and-share alike licensed code is so powerful.

BSD licensed, MIT licensed, etc code does not share in that power.

Re:Fear.

[bill_mcgonigle]

You can bet that Cisco, who bought Linksys shortly before the debacle, wasn't happy. Being able to get high-end device features on a low-end device is not part of most businesses plans. I'm sure that Linksys devices were extremely popular due to this, but one has to wonder if Cisco lost any sales to small-to-medium businesses over it.

Isn't that why they bought Linksys? Because the low-end was becoming good enough for many customers?

Better to buy a Cisco-Linksys box than a Netgear.

Re:Understandable response...

[Kjella]

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... Well, there are two possibilities:
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.

Slavery - Freedom To Take Freedom

[mrcaseyj]

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.

Not fear, rational decision making.

[raehl]

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.