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FSF Files Suit Against Cisco For GPL Violations
Brett Smith writes "This morning the Free Software Foundation filed suit against Cisco for violations of the GPL and LGPL. There's a blog post with background about the case. The full complaint is available too." The short version, as excerpted by reader byolinux, is that "in the course of distributing various products under the Linksys brand Cisco has violated the licenses of many programs on which the FSF holds copyright, including GCC, binutils, and the GNU C Library. In doing so, Cisco has denied its users their right to share and modify the software."
They allow abusive entities such as the Free Software Foundation to go after Cisco. If only the software was distributed without cumbersome GLP and LGPL licensing restrictions, and was truly free like software wants to be, then Cisco wouldn't have been forced to violate the licenses.
For shame.
The thing about these lawsuits is that I hope the FSF tried to resolve the violations outside of court before litigating. Remember: court is supposed to be a last resort, not first recourse.
When (or if) the FSF wins this suit, it will almost certainly be a boon for custom firmware development for these devices. Like the WRT5GL, I'd expect the new router firmwares to make the router much more useful.
How should I proceed? Should I buy these (forcibly) open-sourced devices? Or should I avoid Linksys because of their repeated violations of the GPL?
This is why free licenses such as BSD should be adopted for any commercial project. Avoid viral licenses such as *GPL.
goal here? H"ow can
I'd wait until the dust settles, to be honest--but if you want a recommendation for the interim, here's one:
Don't buy out-of-compliance devices. Boycott Cisco until they fix this problem, either by settling the case and releasing code...or until the trial is complete.
I love my Linksys router.
I was under the impression that other than the wrt54gl (the one I bought, naturally), none of them run linux anymore.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I've worked at Cisco, and the general attitude among many (not all) is that they don't care about GPL violations. Linux is used as it's the fastest path to get the products out.
The reason why this will be unsettling to Cisco is because some of the products have integrated key IOS files in order to retain backwards compatibility. Which means that those files now fall under the GPL. And the only way to integrate them is to use various Linux API's. That is, key files are derived works from the GPL. From the bootstrap code on up.
But, since these files are key to IOS as well, one could take the view that IOS is now under the GPL.
One could try to maintain that those files need to be dual-licensed. However, though some hold that to be valid, I don't believe such a dual license has ever been held up in court. So that might get interesting if the FSF wanted to push it. In any case, it could be a useful bargaining chip.
In any case, those files don't have the appropriate copyrights stating how they are licensed.
The amusing part here is that this has come about mostly because of Cisco's dedication to using as much H1-B/L1 labor as possible. It's been those guys who have mostly (not entirely) done this work in order to get things done quickly. And believe me, protestations about the licensing have been ignored completely when they've been raised. Hack-it-in quickly and damn the lawyers has been the attitude.
It's very amusing to see that Cisco's use of cheap labor has come back to bite them in a way that has the potential to cost them more money than if they had done things in the right fashion originally.
Based on the background, seems like Cisco have 5 years to essentially send an email to all their known customers and post a notice on their website to a public ftp site with the relevant software. Am I oversimplifying?
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Cisco / Linksys set themselves up for a fall here. If they wanted code they could just rip off and use whilst largely ignoring the license, why on earth didn't they just use BSD code? These are large companies, presumably they have lawyers. But they're acting like some kid who downloads an image from Google Image Search and uses it on their webpage - "I downloaded it off the web for free so I can just use it right?"
libguestfs - tools for accessing and modifying virtual machine disk images
You guys just don't get it. The FSF protects software. Then Cisco went and muddied it all up like your sister's proprietary, tattooed boyfriend. Now every time you use GCC, it'll be thinking of Cisco.
what about aprouter.com.br? they offer firmware based on linux for edimax wireless routers. the catch? you need a license to use the wireless device no sources AFAICS :(
There are companies that contribute greatly top open source, like SUN for example (OpenOffice, Open Solaris, ...). And there are companies out there that leech off of it and even refuse to open up if they are asked to do so by the FSF.
Next time you make a purchase decision you should take that into account if your company is using oss.
I was under the impression that other than the wrt54gl (the one I bought, naturally), none of them run linux anymore.
If the folks at Cisco decide that potential lawsuits and being forced to open source code that they would rather not, is not worth the risk/trouble.
It's a shame, really. I would have preferred to have seen the FSF and Cisco settle this behind closed doors, without a lawsuit, as a win-win for everyone.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
That sucks. I'm glad I have a couple of WRT54GL boxes, because I can easily see the entire range being dumped if the FSF wins. It's a lose lose sort of situation. FSF has talked to CISCO about this repeatedly and there has been no resolution. Now CISCO refuses to talk so the FSF has to persue the matter or else allow the GPL be flouted. If it persues the matter CISCO/Linksys may well just dump the products but if it doesn't there's a very bad precedent set for the GPL being abused, and FSF has no teeth in any similar situtions.
I'd be surprised if the routers aren't simply pulled if the FSF does win. Damn it I love my WRT54GL. Most reliable and flexible router I've owned.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
No one gives a shit.
The FSF has filed suit against Cisco for copyright violations. Cisco distributed code owned by the FSF without permission.
Yes, Cisco could easily be distributing with permission, and hence legally, if they followed the requirements of the GPL. Instead, they chose to distribute without permission, a violation of federal copyright law.
The FSF had been trying to quietly resolve this for 5 years. They didn't exactly jump the gun on this one.
It could be a misunderstanding of the GPL or bad advice from an expert. Why, if I asked a question about the GPL, I would get dozens of posts each having their own and differing "expert" opinion of what is meant.
People violate the copyright of corporations, corporations sue the violators, slashdotters bitch about the corporations and get firmly behinds the people and decry copyright and copyright litigation.
Corporation violates the copyright of the FSF, FSF sues corporation, slashdotters bitch about the corporations and get firmly behind the FSF and support copyright and copyright litigation.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Slashdot.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
With any sort to keep up as having lost 93% balance is str0ck, people playing can
If you read the article, you'll see that they did. They've been working with Cisco for the last five years on it, but according to the FSF never became fully compliant:
As we always do in violation cases, we began a process of working with Cisco to help them understand their obligations under our licenses, and how they could come into compliance. Early on it seemed likely that we could resolve the issues without any fuss.
While we were working on that case, though, new reports came in. Other Cisco products were not in full compliance either. We started talking to the company about those as wellâ"and that's how a five-years-running game of Whack-a-Mole began. New issues were regularly discovered before we could finish addressing the old ones.
During this entire time, Cisco has never been in full compliance with our licenses. At first glance, the situation might look good. It's not difficult to find "source code" on the Linksys site. But you only have to dig a little deeper to find the problems. Those source code downloads are often incomplete or out-of-date. Cisco also provides written offers for source, but we regularly hear about requests going unfulfilled.
Despite our best efforts, Cisco seems unwilling to take the steps that are necessary to come into compliance and stay in compliance. We asked them to notify customers about previous violations and inform them about how they can now obtain complete source code; they have refused to do this, along with the other reasonable demands we have made to consider this case settled. The FSF has put in too many hours helping the company fix the numerous mistakes it's made over the years. Cisco needs to take responsibility for its own license compliance.
No no no.
Cisco has violated copyright law by distributing GPLed FSF code under terms other than specified in the only available license. The ownership and licensing of IOS code is not affected by this in any way. This is the past.
Now for the future. If Cisco wants to keep distributing IOS code mixed with FSF code, there is only one way of doing it. That is to release the code under the GPL, because the FSF doesn't offer any other licenses. Only the IOS code which is mixed with FSF code needs to be released under the GPL. This has no effect on any other IOS code (older or in other products or whatever).
Don't forget that Linksys isn't the only Linux compatible router on the market. Other companies such as Asus, Buffalo and others make routers that work with Linux based custom firmware and in some cases use more powerful hardware. So if you're going to boycott you still have options.
WRT54GL boxes use broadcom ('blobcom') chipsets with non-Free binary only drivers for the 2.4 kernels. No 2.6 / ipv6 for me. :(
I love my WRT54GL--but I'm ready for something better supported.
Since the user doesn't get the code.
Or when are MS going to release the BSD code in Windows, including all enhancements?
So they can't change the BSD code in Windows, can they.
The user doesn't have to be a developer either. They can PAY a developer to do it. They are still the user. And, since the BSD allows the new developer to give the binary closed, the developer the user has paid can take the freedom to get someone else to do more work from the user who paid for it.
Don't be an idiot.
This is not exactly "put some code on the web for download."
If you mean that Linksys/Cisco could have avoided this at any time in the past five years by releasing the code, you are probably right. The FSF is easy to get along with. It is anybody's guess what they need to offer the FSF now to make it go away.
You can satisfy GPLv3 by sending out links to a public ftp site, but the GPLv2 requires physical media if requested. Considering how convoluted the licensing is when using linux, there is probably some GPLv1 code still in there somewhere. I think you have to send your code in punch cards for GPLv1 but I could be wrong.
The only thing this lawsuit will do is cement firmly in the minds of business that the GPL is viral in nature. Once a business has released anything GPL, they are required to support it forever. There's no going back, and unlike individuals, no walking away from it. Business people like to talk about TCO and now they will need to factor in TCS, where the s stands for support.
This could send the wrong message. If you Use GPL and make a lot of money from it you will get Sued. Details of the reasons will fade just the face the GPL is considered to Risky for a corporate environment. You better off buying a License from Microsoft as you can choose to agree to the terms before hand, then going with a product which wile may be free will have a bunch of people ready to pounce on you if you make this code successful.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Did Jammie get off from her $220,000 fine because she said she'd stop?
And Cisco restarted selling linux routers because they were so popular and the closed source ones were not.
And why, WHY, would Cisco make their routers MORE expensive (and have to, to cover the licensing costs) just because they don't wanna let people modify the code they wanted to modify.
The existence of this kind of discussion (regardless who has the reason) is what scares a lot to many managers that are not interested (or are not able) to get the correct-freedom-flavor philosophy, so they end avoiding free software as a whole....
In their minds, everything, if free, has a catch... well, the catch is that legalese with the freedom concept, that after a long time can return and "destroy" (that is, force to open your code) the competitive advantage secrets or whatever is called.
I'm really not sure at the end what approach will provide more benefits to the users, the developers, the proprietary software enterprises (yes, they pay the checks for a lot of people), or humanity as a whole.
Now, will Cisco sell the routers free?
You can always hack an SD card in. :)
There are instructions floating around to do it. Honestly I could never bring myself to sac SD card reader...although I have a few SD-micro adapters that I could probably consider doing that to.
Plus with the SD-micro card removed if I fry the adapter I'm not out of a card.
BSD uses gcc too, and FSF claims infringement on gcc too.
What's the problem. Cisco did nothing wrong.
1. They only copied, NOT STOLE OR VIOLATED ANYTHING, a couple of bits.
2. They wouldn't have bought it anyway.
3. The FSF is not going to give an type of damages to the people who origianlly created the works.
4. The FSF and it's failing business model...blah blah blah.
Now think...
The reason why this will be unsettling to Cisco is because some of the products have integrated key IOS files in order to retain backwards compatibility. Which means that those files now fall under the GPL.
This is false. Releasing GPL code can never automatically force other code to be licensed under the GPL. What it does mean is that someone was distributing code without a license, and may be liable for copyright infringement damages. If they *had* licensed their other code under the GPL, they wouldn't have been liable.
In general, a number of GPL-using authors tend to be okay with someone who has infringed doing a subsequent GPL-based release as a way to clear the air (and often then forgive previous damage caused by earlier infringements), but (a) they need not forgive the damages in such a case, (b) the infringer need never do a GPL-based release of their own code, instead simply paying damages.
*sigh* Cueing the millionth identical replay of the exact same longwinded "BSD is freer because...." "No, GPL is freer because...." discussion subthread, in which the contributors get to restate the established position using the same old arguments to make the same old points, and neither side changes the other's mind.
:)
Nothing wrong with that, but we don't need to hear it over and over and over again. Can't we just find an old subthread on the subject and link to that instead?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I have a WRT54G (not the L, but before they went to that shitty crashy excuse of an OS.. v4 I think)
Before I had DD-WRT on it, I went to the Linksys website to download firmware updates. The source was available.
Has this since changed, or was it incomplete? I've always applauded Linksys (before they were Cisco) for specifically making the Linux-based GL for us tinkerers. You can pull off some cool shit with those routers.
Hopefully this is just a misunderstanding.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
The FSF had been trying to quietly resolve this for 5 years.
That's what troubles me: given that the FSF were obviously patient about it, what caused Cisco *not* to comply?
I guess we'll just have to wait to hear Cisco's side of the story.
But again, regardless of who's right, and who's wrong, publicity like this is not good for open source, and I wish this lawsuit did not come to be.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
This could send the wrong message. If you Use bootleg proprietary software and make a lot of money from it you will get Sued. Details of the reasons will fade just the face the proprietary software is considered to Risky for a corporate environment. You better off getting a License from GPL as you can choose to agree to the terms before hand, then going with a product which wile may be backed by a big company will have a bunch of people ready to pounce on you if you make this code successful.
When Virgin violated the GPL the FSF didn't bother.
Bout time FSF did something.
Cisco is being REALLY REALLY stupid here and I just don't understand why.
I've done a lot of commercial software that uses LGPL and GPL code, and its not rocket science. RMS himself even says that "mere aggregation" is not a problem.
Here are the rules:
if its LGPL, link to it, but don't modify it. If you need to modify it, make the modification in the form of a generic API extension and call it from the application. Make your extensions public.
If it is GPL, make it a service and call it through a socket.
If it is a kernel module, there seems to be some wiggle room there, otherwise make a public mini-driver and a proprietary user space app.
How hard is that? Jeez, if you screw up GPL compliance, you are not paying attention.
It's a funny thing, but my experience with BSD in a corporate environment is that it doesn't end up as much of a success. There are some exceptions, but even in the case of OS-X, Apple seems to have completely failed to build the community they wanted at the beginning. Most other cases, starting with BSD/OS (BSD 386) and going through IPSO, Ipsilon's home grown BSD based OS, and many others you haven't heard of (AlchemyOS etc.) end up completely dead. Even Microsoft's TCP stack seems to have been rewritten with little BSD left behind.
I think the reason the BSD code dies is precisely because of it's non copyleft license. The companies mostly know that the best way to handle maintenance is to contribute back to the original developer. However, that's not a requirement of the license and so needs to be agreed to by the corporate lawyers. Separately for each contribution. The always want a justification and it just isn't worth any programmer's effort. With GPL code, the fact you have to give back makes the justification very easy to provide. That puts the corporate developers easily in touch with the "community" of other developers on that software and makes the development end up more successful. I'd love to hear other explanations for this. The main data point I have is that across a bunch of different projects I have seen, it always seems that the GPL ones have an active process for contributing back and have developers who are active and known in the original development community. On the other hand the BSD ones, even though they've included a number of former BSD developers don't seem to and those developers seem to give up on making contributions back to the original system.
I know that's CISCO, in this case is probably not really getting as much benefit from this as they could if they followed the GPL, but I think there gets to be a general perception that Linux leads to success and BSD leads to dead ends. People select software based on that perception
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Yeah - Richard Stallman owns ALL software and gets to decide who gets to use it. . .
Crazy Hippie.
It is anybody's guess what they need to offer the FSF now to make it go away.
The FSF wants what it always wanted, for Cisco users to have the freedoms that Cisco took from them. If Cisco wastes a lot of FSF money in court, the FSF might ask for that back too, but we can all be sure that the FSF will take freedom as soon as it is offered and not pursue vindictive punishment. This is how the FSF has always acted. All of the force of law will fall on Cisco for having scoffed for five years because the FSF has been more than patient.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Get the name right. It's Gnu/Cisco.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
If you mean that Linksys/Cisco could have avoided this at any time in the past five years by releasing the code, you are probably right.
If you read the complaint, the FSF acknowledges that Linksys* has already released most of the code they are required to release. The big problem is that Linksys has a habit of releasing the binary versions first, then neglecting to release the source until the FSF complains and dragging their feet even then.
The bottom line is that the FSF wants Linksys to be more proactive about releasing source files (by appointing a Free Software Compliance Officer) and to pay them for past abuse.
* The complaint specifically and exclusively references Linksys products. It says nothing about IOS or any Cisco-branded products.
The complaint is that there were multiple violations, most of which were resolved eventually, but the problem is that they keep happening and they take too long to resolve. The FSF wants Linksys to appoint a Free Software Compliance Officer to be more proactive about providing source.
Also, note that this is all about Linksys-branded products, not Cisco-branded ones. IIRC, Linksys mostly operates independently from the rest of Cisco.
They allow abusive entities such as the Free Software Foundation to go after Cisco.
I know you're just trying to be funny, but what's worth noticing is that this is the FSF's first lawsuit:
[...] Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF. "In the fifteen years we've spent enforcing our licenses, we've never gone to court before. We have always managed to get the companies we have worked with to take their obligations seriously.
Isn't that interesting? I'm not sure whether Cisco decided to call the FSF's bluff or whether they have some other thinking behind their decisions; but I know that this is going to be interesting to watch.
IIRC, the GPL has been upheld in court before, so (depending on the details of Cisco's actions) the FSF is probably in a good position to win.
The title of the article is erroneous.
Not if "GPL violation" is a common shorthand for "infringement of copyright in a work ordinarily distributed under the GNU General Public License".
After getting the "our developers are working on it" runaround for months and months when Linksys didn't issue new drivers without the Broadcom vulnerability for my WPC54G adapter, rendering it totally useless, I decided to never, never, again buy Linksys equipment.
The lined FSF news item names GCC and binutils as licenced items that Cisco is not doing the right thing with. GNU libc I can understand (but thought that most of those sorts of gizmos used newlib), but gcc itself? How are GCC and Binutils being brought into the complaint?
-- Andrew
If it is GPL, make it a service and call it through a socket.
This doesn't work in a few cases:
Boycott Cisco
I use a Netgear router, but Cisco products may be upstream of my home. I know of two residential Internet service providers in Fort Wayne, Indiana: Verizon and Comcast. Verizon has been seen palling around with Cisco, and so has Comcast. So how do I boycott Cisco without boycotting the whole Internet?
CallManager 5.x, Redhat-based
CallManager 6.x, Redhat-based
Content Engine (CE560,CE590): Redhat-based
MDS switches: Redhat-based.
NM-NAM module for routers: Redhat-based
Some 7600/Catalyst 6500 service modules: Linux-based.
Want proof?
Connect to the console for a cold boot... Redhat is explicitly mentioned.
Heck, the update patches for some of the modules are UNSIGNED RPM's.
The interesting thing is that the modules have router/switch backplane connectivity, i.e. that Linux on the module has a network interface that is attached to the router/switch, and the Router/Switch sees the module as one or more interfaces... Drivers anyone?
The NM-NAM may also use other open source code as the basis for analysis and display of collected NetFlow data...
The initial install images may contain more common file formats, (Gzip, cpio, tar) with proprietary headers prepended...
Busting images open is an excercise for some geek with time and CCO access thats entitled to updates for the products they want to investigate.
"We're a multi-billion dollar company. F*** off!"
But don't be so quick to jump on Cisco. They bought this problem when they bought Linksys. Linksys has been doing this half-assed source code BS since the beginning of time.
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that when you compile C-code with gcc, particularly if you use .so files instead of a monolithic binary, doesn't the program have some dependencies on a libgcc.so or something like that? I suspect that you're right that the devices don't have a fully functioning GCC build environment, but I think they may distribute some components of GCC which are required to execute programs compiled with gcc. Same for binutils - I think you pretty much *need* the ld programs which are part of binutils to have a functioning Linux environment (unless you statically compile *everything*), because they implement and manage so loading on behalf of the kernel, no?
The Free Software Foundation can only file suit when someone directly violates the copyrights of FSF software. There is a lot of GPL licensed software which the FSF does not hold copyrights for. FSF can't sue just because a program is licenses by GPL.
To sue, you either have to be the copyright holder, or maybe (not sure on this one), a downstream 'recipient' of the software. E.g. if you bought a Cisco device with GPL'ed softare, and you couldn't get the source from Cisco, you might have grounds to sue them for breaching your rights wrt to the GPL as a recipient of a binary.
I suppose that might leave some wiggle room for FSF to simply arrange to receive a copy from the violator (e.g. by a non-compliant linksys device at Best Buy), then file the lawsuit.
I actually welcome this news, I think when these things happen it sends a strong signal that free software means business, and we're here to stick around. It might be "free speech," it might even be "free beer," but it ain't "freeloader."
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
If you read the complaint [fsf.org], the FSF acknowledges that Linksys* has already released most of the code they are required to release. The big problem is that Linksys has a habit of releasing the binary versions first, then neglecting to release the source until the FSF complains and dragging their feet even then.
That sounds like there's a helluva good case to be made for willful infringement. Penalties for copyright violation are a lot harsher when the infringer knew that the material was copyrighted, vs. if they were ignorant of its status. It sounds like the FSF has some statutory damages coming.
Breakfast served all day!
If FSF forces them into compliance without cisco feeling some pain or regret then i suspect they wont hesitate to repeat their deeds.
I understand FSF wants to be the good guys,they have principles and ethics, but Cisco is fighting from a different rulebook, one where the winner is the one with the most money, not the highest morals.
The only way Cisco and other similar companies will accept defeat is you beat them on their own turf, playing by their own rules. That means take their money, as much as you can get.
The reason why this will be unsettling to Cisco is because some of the products have integrated key IOS files in order to retain backwards compatibility.
IOS isn't even mentioned in the complaint. All of the products involved are Linksys products, which don't run IOS.
Hitler is evil. Microsoft is evil. Microsoft uses software licenses. That makes software licenses tools of evil.
Therefore software licenses are tools of Hitler and must be destroyed!
There.. can we be done with this now?
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
"in the course of distributing various products under the Linksys brand Cisco has violated the licenses of many programs on which the FSF holds copyright, including GCC, binutils, and the GNU C Library. In doing so, Cisco has denied its users their right to share and modify the software."
===========
Funny - Linksys probably was doing it long before Cisco bought them....so they waited a bit after Cisco purchased Linksys, and are now going after the big fish...
Leave it to the FSF - must stand for Foolish Stupid Fucktards
It looks like Cisco was, at some point, distributing the binaries for GCC and other things necessary to build their firmware. From the standpoint of their users, this was a nice thing to do. However, they didn't provide the source for GCC or the other things, which immediately and automatically removes their rights to distribute GCC and the other things.
According to the complaint, "On May 12, 2006, Plaintiff notified Defendant of Defendant's unlawful conduct based upon its failure to comply with the Licenses for GCC and Binutils, with it distributed in object code form on its website." (That's the first contact that the FSF acknowledges, which is 2 1/2 years, not the 5 that everyone keeps repeating.)
It should be noted that their products did not require GCC or the other things to be distributed with them, it was only provided so that their customers could build the firmware. WTF, isn't that the whole purpose of the f'ing GPL? To empower the end user.
From there, it appears that other products also had firmware that needed GCC and other stuff, which sounds basically like saying there were multiple links on their website for each. The rest of the complaint is small things like missing build scripts and outdated source.
It should be an interesting trial. I just hope that Cisco chooses trial by jury, that will make it even more interesting.
It's too bad that the guy at Cisco in charge of finding GPL violations - Caleb Mulford - found a bunch that were promptly ignored by executive officials because a stink wasn't being made yet (ala this article) recently threw himself in front of a train.
Even if they never look at the code, never pay a consultant to add a feature, etc., the source code is useful.
It's like a mark of quality. In this case, "quality" means that misbehavior is unintentional. There might be bugs, but it won't be an evil mess of spyware and DRM.
Looking at free downloads, you can pretty much answer "Will I get screwed?" by asking if the source is available. To some extent, this even works for things that aren't free downloads.
This is all without getting into the issue of having your business depend on the whims of some software developer who may discontinue their product or go out of business. We so quickly forget how many Y2K problems were unfixable because the source code was unavailable.
What is the current going rate per copyright violation? I bet Cisco use lots and lots of these fandangled linux things.
One of these days the FSF will go after some organization big enough to buy enough legislators or legislation to take the teeth of U.S. copyright law (but only as it applies to the more psuedo-coercive OSS licenses. e.g. not the way Stallman dreams).
.
Much as I like to see fairness of this deal but Cisco will prevail simply because they have integrated themselves tightly in several key areas including the governments and the military who uses Cisco networking equipment. Cisco will not be able to release the source code due to national security concerns, same thing with Microsoft.
And I think Cisco knew this from the beginning.
Even if your allegations about key IOS files is true, This is the worst kind of GPL FUD. Repeated misrepresentations like this hinder the understanding and acceptance of Free Software, I fear. 1) there is no "automatic" relicensing, and 2) you seem to be intimating all of IOS. Unless you're saying that all of IOS was linked with GPL code, then how can anyone ask for a remedy that all of IOS be licensed under GPL?
What are you talking about? If I release my code under GPL, just what empowers a court to limit my freedom by prohibiting me from making additional or alternate agreements? "I don't believe such a dual license has ever been held up in court." is a sign you haven't been hanging around a courtroom lately. Not only are alternate licenses legal, but defendants can and do routinely argue innocence via alternative, even incompatible, theories, instruments, and findings of fact.
Back to Groklaw boot-camp for you.
If the manufacturer of the box has to sign it the owner of the box is locked out of his own box
But what set-top box doesn't lock its owner out?
FSF is loosing the head...
First a friendly free software evangelist, as it should be, then gone deep thanks to richard stallman's stupidity and now they totally loosed their head.
I quit supporting free software from now on until FSF and Stallman disappears from the scene in a definitive way.
Those two parties are the DRM of the free software.
There was a case recently where a company forgot to put that clause in and the contractor kept the copyrights.
Copyrights must be specifically transferred. This can be because the contract says "all work for this contract must give copyright to the buyer" but it has to be there.
And who knows that about copyright and source code?
Nobody if they aren't programmers or lawyers.
And if you're a programmer, you could write the code yourself.
But just enough to pay for the litigation hassle. Judges (usually) pay close attention to the level of courtesy and maturity shown by the litigants prior to filing the suit. By bending over backwards being nice and trying to work things out, FSF has set themselves on the moral high ground, which (usually) pays back big time in the judge's decision.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
If you hesitated about buying a Linksys router running Linux, hurry up.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Or when are MS going to release the BSD code in Windows, including all enhancements?
Yeah, then we could all use WSAGetLastError().
We could ask Bill, but EWOULDBLOCK it.
Or another way to avoid linking problems is to use GPLv3 instead, at least for those packages that are under a "GPLv2 or higher" license.
Eben Moglen went to a lot of trouble to redefine the language used in GPLv3 so as to get rid of GPLv2's very fuzzy use of the concept of derivation, which was so fuzzy that every man and his dog developed a different interpretation. Eben replaced all that by "conveying", and defined it very precisely so that if there is no conveying then there is no license virality.
This makes it black and white now: GPLv3 doesn't trigger on *usage* at all (it's not a usage license), but only on the *conveying" that occurs at distribution. As a result, linking for usage doesn't cause virality, because usage isn't conveying. In other words, Eben made GPLv3 consistent with the Copyright Office's notion of "derived work", which required an original work of authorship to be partly copied into a different work for it to be considered "derived", and mere usage of a work of authorship had nothing to do with creating derived works from it.
This now applies to the latest GPL too: if dynamic linking is used for the purpose of *usage* of a GPLv3 work, then conveying is not occurring and hence license tainting is not possible either. That would keep Cisco out of trouble, unless they actually copied GPLv3 code and modified their copy, in which case nothing will save them of course. (Static linking is a mixture of usage and replication, so the grey area would probably end up in court too, ie. best avoided, whereas dynamic linking is the primary example of normal usage of a library, and hence entirely free of conveying taint.)
Analysing Section 0 of GPLv3 with a toothcomb is actually very eye-opening. If all you know is GPLv2, you're in for a surprise.
All the posts that I have seen on this thread assume that Cisco will lie down and admit that their software has copied GPL'd code. That makes sense. They appear to be pretty much caught dead to rights on that one.
There is another question, however: Is the original GPL code subject to copyright protection? In other words, Britney Spears can copy my songs note for note and word for word, and she won't be able to successfully sue me if I copied those songs note for note and word for word from Johann Sebastian Bach.
Think for a moment about how utterly EXPENSIVE it is to prove such a point or defend such a point. Think how COMPLICATED this is. You need really expensive experts to prove this kind of stuff and you pay them godawful fees per hour to do their work.
If the FSF is smart, they ought to be able to enlist a LOT of skilled programmers to grok on this (think about the SCO litigation). They can prioritize and organize their expert code review among expert DONATED help. I would expect (or hope) that the FSF has people organizing this kind of cooperative, coordinated help right now!!
Cisco will have to pay for their labor intensive expert code review--in a declining economy. They'll also have to pay their big-firm lawyers. Those firms salivate like Niagara Falls when they see cases like this.
The point of all this is that Cisco ought to roll over on its back and get really submissive right now because if they want to win their lawsuit against the FSF they are going to have to pay and pay and pay. Cost-benefit tips way in favor of an early amicable settlement.
No early settlement means protracted war. Cisco will have to put scarce resources into its attack on GPL'd code (lawyers and experts), while the FSF has lots of experts motivated and available to donate expert help. This is where the Stalingrad metaphor comes in. The GPL can afford to throw more bodies at the problem than Cisco can.
I sure hope this settles quickly and amicably.
I want that on a t-shirt.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.