Slashdot Mirror
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 still see this as a reason not to use GPL, preferring instead to use BSD-style licensed software or public domain software whenever possible.
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.
It's too bad they already lost their rights under the GPL. Once the suit is filed the SFLC won't accept just publishing the source. To get distribution rights back is going to cost them some cash to cover SFLC's costs in addition to some punitive costs to make sure they remember never to do it again.