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."

Comments

So... how does this violate the GPL?

[razathorn]

What am I missing here? How does distributing a GPL program that the sources is freely available for violate the GPL? Is there a concern that they have modified GS in some way and not contributed the changes to GS back to the community? It sounds like people are just wigging out because somebody making money distributed a GPL application in a perfectly legal way. If the issue is that GS has been modified (which I can't tell if it is or not), has anyone inquired to diebold to see if the source to the changed version of GS is available at no additional cost to those who acquire the voting machines? I believe that is the real question here.

Sounds like a lot of jumping to conclusions here.

Re:Yes it does.

[Em Ellel]

The GPL is pretty strict about any distribution requiring source being made available. Embedded devices are no exception.

Erm, the person who modded that as "Informative" needs some education - it is a misleading statement at best. Requirement for distributing source only applies to MODIFIED source. You are allowed to distribute unmodified code under GPL however you like:

From GPL:

4. Conveying Verbatim Copies.

You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.

You may charge any price or no price for each copy that you convey, and you may offer support or warranty protection for a fee.

Re:remember freedom?

[LWATCDR]

Oh I do agree but you are drinking Artifex's koolaid.
It is hard to tell but it looks like they just want money. They don't care if Diebold publish the source or not.
From the link.
"The alleged infringement "has contributed to [Diebold and PES] profits and is adversely affecting the potential market for and value of Artifex's copyrighted works," according to the court papers.

Artifex is seeking unspecified monetary damages in excess of $150,000 and also wants the court to impound PES equipment that allegedly violates Artifex copyrights. "
I just don't think this has anything to do with Freedom and everything to do with MONEY.

id say sue the bastards

[nimbius]

but can you sue a government company?