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?

[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.

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...

[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

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

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.

[strabes]

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