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GPL Case Against Danish Satellite Provider
Rohde writes "The number of satellite and cable boxes on the Danish market using Linux has significantly increased during the last couple of years. The providers Viasat, Yousee and Stofa all provide HD receivers based on Linux, and all of them fail to provide the source code or make customers aware of the fact that the units are based on GPL licensed software. I decided it was time to fix this situation and luckily the Danish legal company BvHD has decided to take the case. We are starting with Viasat, which distributes a Samsung box including middleware and security from NDS, and you can follow the case here."
at some stage, manufacturers will realize the hidden cost of using GNU/Linux in their embedded platforms... For commodity gadgets and tools, it will not be an issue to share the internals are the hardware will be the added value. But for unique items that should not be the case and therefore some other toolkit with no ogligation to share modifications should be preferred.
And I'm making my living with GNU/Linux tools only ;-)
More often, I see my customers using GNU/Linux because it's without licenses to pay for the final product. But they do not realize theyr obligation to share... And it'is very difficult to educate them.
Does fellows /.ers have similar issue with customer?
This is why we need a "-1 WTF" option
I'm guessing sarcasm. If it's not, ignore this.
It may actually get media attention to Linux, which is always good. It's definitely not hard for them to provide source either; simply have something in the manual stating "source available at [url]". I don't see why this would be a problem for Linux, at all. If anything, it's free advertisement to communities that normally wouldn't have the first idea about its existence.
What does the community get out of the fact that YouSee, Stofa, and Viasat use Linux?
All the Danes on Slashdot probably know about Viasat's business practices, which are about as close to fraud as you can get without losing in court, so I don't need to warn anyone against signing contracts with them.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
In some countries, law firms are allowed to sue on the behalf of copyright owners on their own initiative, much like how you can be brought up on assault charges by the state in some countries even if the person you hit wanted you to do so.
If you sell somebody a box with linux on it you need to at the minimum include a statement in the user manual which more or less says "This box has some GPL licensed software installed on it. You can obtain the source-code from the following website and you are free to modify it under certain conditions. Please see the complete license for more details."
Alternatively you can include a CD with the source code, or load the source code into the box's harddrive ( provided it is readily retrievable ). Basically you just need to make the customer aware you use GPL software on the box and tell them how to obtain the source code from you. There's various ways to do that but the easiest is probably to either include the source on a CD or to upload it to your website and tell the customer they can retrieve it from there. The main problem with the latter approach is that the GPL requires you to keep the source available for some years (can't remember how many ) and thus you may find it easier to just give the user a CD with the source code since you are then not obliged to keep a server running.
The company NDS that actually does most of the software on the box and tracked me down actually had 1 month to come up with an excuse for why the box violated GPL. I had direct contact with one of their representatives. They failed to give me any answer. I then contact the satellite provider using certified mail and wait 13 days for their answer. How long should I wait for this to be fair? The Danish providers have ignored GPL for years and I am pretty sure they know it. It would be nice of them to at least contact me and say we are working on it.
``This is going to be great for the uptake of Linux, and will really encourage people to use open-source tools instead of rolling their own proprietary black box. Keep up the good work!''
Rather than ... take the hard work of many hands, without compensating them or abiding by their terms, and using that to make your proprietary black box? Because that's what these companies have done.
The fact that the black box runs open source software means nothing when you don't get your Four Freedoms.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
In europe we have a lot of sat receivers built around Linux. I personally use a Dreambox. There are many variations on the distributions with different add ons and themes for interface. My favorite is the Gemini. The ecosystem is very well and alive and is centered around many forums where people exchange their experience
I wonder if this provider uses something based on the Dreambox.
The providers very often don't support using those Linux receiver because they have more options then the locked down proprietary receiver. By example my setup has a rotor so that I can pick many positions and different providers. Another cool thing is that you can stream on your local network the video and see it with VLC on any computer in your home, something that proprietary boxes never allow...
The problem is that there are several Chinese clones because if the software is GPL the hardware is not open sourced.
In cyberspace nobody knows you're a cat!
Also, their lawsuit is not going too far, unless they personally are the copyright owners of the code. Just having a violation is not enough. The copyright owner needs to sue them for it. It's not enough for someone who have heard about the work to sue them.
From http://duff.dk/viasat/ (TFA)
August 16th, 2009 - It has been brought to my attention that I do not state which part of the GPL code I am claiming copyright ownership on. I have some patches in the Linux kernel and a direct copyright notice in e.g. therm_adt746x.c. However my patches alone are not going to make a very strong case and it is my hope that big contributors to busybox and uClibc will help out making a bigger group of people who had their copyright violated. I have already contacted several people who have very clear violations of their copyright in the product, and we are looking to sue on their behalf too. But let me please be very clear about the fact that I would rather this case could be settled in a peaceful manner.
Good for you, but here in Denmark things works differently. 2 weeks notice is plenty of time, often people just go straight to Fogedretten and gets injunctions against the offending parties.
I put cash money down on a physical server with 1T of 15k rpm spinning disks 3 days ago. If said server gets here in 6 weeks I will be happy.
Erm... Why does your supplier suck so much?
Seriously, Newegg carries this kind of stuff, and I've never seen them take more than a few days. Granted, Newegg also doesn't provide the kind of service I'm sure your supplier does, but really, six weeks? WTF are they doing for six weeks?
To be frank, the world works slower than you do, get used to it.
An appropriate response here is often: s/get used to it/do something about it/g.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
And, why, exactly, can you not modify them? Any box I've ever touched had an option to "update firmware". Granted, I haven't touched them all, but I can't imagine one without the option. If your box is using open source, people can build their own firmware - look at all the WRT firmwares available, starting with Tomato, DDWRT, OpenWRT - and there may be more.
A bright individual might roll his own, or not.
Actually - it might be to the ISP's advantage to allow this sort of thing. Some people are going to brick their boxes while tampering with them. Warranty is void, of course, if the box has been tampered with. So, the ISP gets the opportunity to sell another 20 dollar (or Euro, kroner, or whatever they use up there) box for 50 dollars.
Inform people that they have options. I'm all for that.
On the other hand, I wonder if pursuing these sort of actions might not scare vendors away from open source?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Hold a Vista installation DVD in front of it and see if it growls.
Because the device only accepts firmware with the proper digital signature? At least, that's how TiVo did it.
No existe.
Not exactly correct
You only need to provide source code when ASKED for it. There is no requirement in the GPL to pro-actively distribute the source code along with the binaries nor that they must be available for download on the Internet. The good old CD in the mail system is fine. You might even charge for CD and postage.
However, if you do not include source code in the distribution then you need to provide a written offer valid for at least three years to provide anyone who possesses the object code a copy of the corresponding source code.
The reason most compliant companies chose to either include the source or just put it on their corporate web page is because this is easier in the first place than to handle potentially thousands of letters asking for the source later.
In point of fact there is _nothing_ "hidden" about the cost of using GPL software in a product.
If you go the Microsoft Wince (I didn't name it 8-) route, you pay many dollars up-front, and some dollars per-unit.
You go GPL you pay nothing up front and pay full disclosure on the back end per unit.
The whole problem is the perception that this is "hidden" in the first place. When the tech people sell the GPL software to their managers they, in their naiveté, usually don't know to make a distinction between free(beer) and free(open).
Once the programmers, and indeed people like you, understand enough to present the cost/benefit analysis as it truly is, then this may stop happening.
Don't even think _hidden_, don't fool yourself or others. It's right there in the language of the GPL plain as day. Just like it's supposed to be. And thats the good thing that separates it from the BSD license which has no cost at all. That is the _whole_ reason to pick one over another as a licensor.
Hence "copyleft" instead of "public domain" etc.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Please read my web page as it pretty much answers why they decided to track me down. I'm beginning to think you did not read the prologue? I was in contact multiple times with the security investigators from NDS and made them aware of the problem. We had meetings and phone conversations. It is now 6 weeks since I pointed them to the GPL violations and no comments so far. Viasat distributes the box and is the official offender, but I am pretty sure they rely on the solution bought from NDS. This is why I first tried to talk with NDS.
If you are wondering why NDS sent security investigators it was most likely because I started digging into how the box is tied to your subscription card, thus making it impossible for you to use other brands of satellite receivers.
If the company picked up the source code for the linux kernel, altered (extensively or not) to their liking, built an OS based on that kernel and started distributing the binaries without any hint it was linux and much less publishing the interfaces and even the source code then how exactly is it any different than "rolling their own proprietary black box" ?
Moreover, if someone picks up a copyrighted work and intentionally breaks the license agreement that made it possible for them to access that copyrighted work to begin with then that person just set him/herself for a lot of legal pain. That is true for any type of copyrighted work, including open source and any flavour of proprietary software. So no, it doesn't affect the uptake of linux, as any copyright dispute involving proprietary software affects the uptake of proprietary.
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
What does the community get out of the fact that YouSee, Stofa, and Viasat use Linux?
It gets valuable proof that Linux is a serious industrial strength system, making it hard for critics to portray it as a homespun system for hobbyists. Even (especially?) if Joe public hates these firms, businessfolk will respect them.
Market share also means that component manufacturers will have an incentive to support Linux (I doubt these firms make their own chipsets).
The programmers working on these devices will get Linux experience, and put it on their CVs. "5 years Linux experience with major company" reads better (to a suit) than "hack with Linux a bit on my own time".
Perversely, even a well-spun lawsuit might help (it shows that Linux is valuable enough to be worth defending). Especially if the publicity points out how little it will cost the culprits to comply vs. how many millions they would have been liable for had they breached a license for proprietary software, and points to all the other big, ugly firms that comply without going bust (even 800lb gorillas like Apple and IBM manage not to cross the line).
Quite honestly, though, the community still gets the benefit of market share if some of the users fail to comply. Its one of those awkward questions - do you want "four freedoms" and an OS that nobody uses, or "three-and-a-half freedoms" plus a fighting chance of being a major player in a field where the competition offers "minus six freedoms"?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If they do not comply, regardless of the reason, then they do not have any license to redistribute the GPLed software at all.
If they cannot comply then they will end up having to pay punitive damages to the copyright holders of the software that they illegally distributed and cease any further distribution of the software.
You cannot simply ignore the GPL because it doesn't fit with your other contractual obligations. The copyright holders were not a party to those other contracts and so the existence of them does not free the distributors of their GPL obligations.
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
Yes, but the progressions from Meeting->Dinner->Wait->Lawsuit seems a bit quick to jump into court.
Maybe he's just too pissed at this companies behaviour (which does seem pretty bad), but it seems to me the reasonable approach would have been to send a few letters explicitly asking for the code and seeing what -if anything - they respond with. If they don't give a satisfactory response then you think about using the courts.
Lawsuits are only good for lawyers. They should be a last resort.
... and I call bullshit on his story of "NDS investigators". What we do, we do well, and what we don't, we stay out of.
As far as technical details: no kernel changes were made; the drivers are non-GPLed, using a small GPL'ed wrapper layer. The NDS software, which on these boxes runs entirely in user-space, is linked against the LGPL'ed uClibc. Busybox is used on the STB. All of the "glue" (such as busybox, boot scripts, etc) are provided by the broadcaster, STB manufacturer, and/or chipset vendor.
The bootloader is not based on any Linux code.
Well, if I was doing a router I wouldn't go with BSD, because:
1. If you contribute back, any contribution is going to be free for all. Which means that if Linksys contributes something, Netgear automatically gets to use it without any strings attached in their next product. If it happens that Linksys got something almost right, and Netgear managed to polish it to perfection in a few days, then Netgear just gained a really cool feature, courtesy of Linksys, and Linksys doesn't get to see how they did it.
2. If you don't contribute back, you now have to maintain an internal fork. This is not very easy, since the people doing the public development don't know or care about what you're doing, and are perfectly free to introduce changes that completely break your modifications.
3. If you release your changes under the GPL, the BSD supporters will whine about it for weeks.
4. A lot of stuff out there is targeted to Linux. There's lots of software that doesn't build cleanly on Solaris due to applications using GNU extensions. I imagine the same goes for BSD as well.
Considering they first sent around inspectors to spy on him for daring to open the box ... fuck 'em. Fuck 'em hard.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
While Apple is heavily involved in several Open Source projects like WebKit, CUPS etc. they do not use Linux in any way.
They may not use the Linux kernel, but OS X includes a metric shedload of GNU and other o/s code including, for example, samba, bash and gcc, which are also critical parts of many Linux-based OSs. (and how many suits make the distinction between the kernel and what you get in a full distro?)
The point is that, while IBM seem to have renounced their wicked ways and become born again FOSS evengelists, Apple are still notoriously secretive, litigious, and protective of their IP (and maybe not particularly liked by the FOSS movement) yet even they manage to at least provide source code.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
If you can't provide the necessary source to comply with the GPL then you
don't really have the necessary source to rebuild your complete environment.
You aren't really in a good position to ensure anything with regards to QA
of your entire "product" because you can't recreate the entire user
environment.
If you are in a position properly test your product based on BSDL or GPL work
then you are in a position to pass that source along to any customer that asks.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.