Slashdot Mirror
Suit Claims Diebold Voting Machines Violate GPL
An anonymous reader writes "Diebold Inc. and its subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions, is using Ghostscript in its electronic election systems even though Diebold and PES 'have not been granted a license to modify, copy, or distribute any of Artifex's copyrighted works,' Artifex claims in court papers filed late last month in US District Court for Northern California. The gs-devel list first brought up the possible GPL violation a year ago."
When they sell the machine to the buyer it is distributing the software that the machine runs.
Google Linksys, they were in a similar situation a few years ago. I'd love to see the same outcome this time!
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
The machine itself is closed and locked down, and most likely cannot be opened without a special key from Diebold.
That you can make from pictures foolishly posted online. Does anyone seriously doubt that Diebold machines are, at best, woefully badly made?
To put it another way (true conversation):
Nerd One: I don't get it, it's not hard to design a machine with buttons that counts ballots fairly in a secure manner.
Nerd Two: It's not hard, there's just no market for it.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.