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Palm Sued Over Palm Pre GPL Violation
zaxl writes "Palm is being sued by Artifex Software over the PDF viewer in Palm's Pre smartphone, which may violate the GNU GPL. Artifex alleges that Palm has copied Artifex's PDF rendering engine, called muPDF, and integrated it into the Palm Pre's PDF viewer application without the proper licensing conditions. The entire application must be licensed under the GPL if muPDF is part of the application. It seems more and more cell phones are shipping with open source code, but in a closed manner."
No, actually it only tells you what you are required to do if you distribute projects that contain it. You can use with out distribution however you want, no restrictions.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Pls don't feed the copy&paste troll ... ... this very same 'story' has been posted way too many times *sigh*
If you use someone else's (copyrighted) code you must abide by the license restriction. If it would be too costly to do so then you can't use the code.
Developers should fully understand whatever license they release under. If someone wants to restrict usage of their code to only open-source projects they are free to do so. If they want to release for the benefit of everyone they are free to do so. If they want to try to make some money off their efforts they are free to do so. The key is understanding what you're doing when you choose a license.
New GPL code is not a donation to the community. It is a payment to those who have written GPL code in the past, released on the understanding that others will pay for it by contributing further code. GPL carries restrictions, learn what they are before you use or write GPL code.
So if this is the future...where's my jet pack?
Actually, copyrights are the basis of the GPL, RMS and the FSF have never denied this. The copyleft strategy is intended to reverse the normal manner in which copyrights are used, but copyrights still form the basis of the license. This is why the GPL carries legal weight, why it stands up in court, and why companies bother paying attention to it.
The only reason we have software licenses at all is copyright. Installing software requires at least one copy of the software to be made; thus, unlike a paper book, you must get the permission of the copyright holder to use their software even after you purchase (or otherwise obtain) a copy. The copyright holder can give you such permission with all sorts of restrictions, or without any restrictions at all (such was with the BSD license).
I am not saying that this system is ideal or that I support it, but it is the reality that we have to deal with.
Palm trees and 8
Oh come on... I can buy a GSM modem and stick it on an embedded board from embeddedarm.com. I now have a fully programmable open phone that, according to you, I can now use to wreak utter havoc on the cell phone industry. (I know, I programmed one. A direct bridge between the GSM network and our wifi network. Wneee! Hear those towers toppling!)
Not really. It's the same bullshit argument you hear about almost anything these days - can't trust the user, have to lock it down, we need DRM, those users are all thieves.
BULLSHIT! It only inconveniences the legit users, not those who really want to destroy civilization.
http://opensource.palm.com/1.3.1/index.html seems to have the source and patches. Is this the end of it or is something missing?
You said "used" which I assumed was supposed to be "use". Use and distribution are two different things. Distribution is not a way to use software. Even if it was, the gpl is very explicit in its goal to only cover only distribution. Many people get confused over this point and think that they are not free to use GPL in a personal project that will never be distributed.That's why I responded: to clarify your statement in the general sense. Yes, in the case of palm they did distribute. But, I think its more important that people understand what the GPL says, then the specifics of any one case. This is why you will notice any actual reference to this case in my first post.
A great example of this is something like MySql. I can change the software to do what ever I want, and use it on my server to build a facebook killer, without being required to distribute the source code for it, even though its licensed under the GPL. Because, again the GPL only covers distribution, not use( or other uses if you insist on your ridiculous definition of use that includes distribution).
Also, you misspelled licenses. I'm usually the guy that people point out grammatical errors to, rather than visa versa. But, still, if you are going to offer advice about a subject, it helps your creditability to actually spell it correctly. Or at least use a web browser with integrated spell checking. Again, the point of posting was not nitpicking, but clarifying as posts similar to your last one have led to quite a bit of misinformation about the GPL license.
Once again:GPL covers distribution only, not use.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
What about http://palm.cdnetworks.net/opensource/1.3.1/documentserver.tar.gz ?
$ ls -1 documentserver/
COPYING-LGPL2.1.txt
debug-x86-org
documentserver
include
lib
Makefile
mustd.h
PDF.cpp
PDF.h
PDFOutline.cpp
PDFOutline.h
PDFPage.cpp
PDFPage.h
PDFRenderer.cpp
PDFRenderer.h
PDFService.cpp
PDFViewer.cpp
PDFViewer.h
Search.cpp
Search.h
The second option is expensive and the third option will probably push the price of the device up (you need either more RAM or to pay ARM for the Jazelle extensions in the CPU core). The GPL'd option looks the least expensive. It's worth noting that iRex follows the GPL path and includes a GPL'd PDF reader on their devices. This has been forked by the community, and the community version is much nicer than the one that they supply. The rest of their software stack sucks (although the hardware is nice).
A lot of companies choose BSD licensed alternatives when they exist, but they are not always available. A lot of companies that choose BSD licensed alternatives contribute code upstream, because it's cheaper for them to do this than maintain their own fork. A lot of companies that use GPL'd code either spend time and effort isolating the GPL'd component so that they can avoid releasing their code, or just ignore the GPL and hope that they won't get caught. The latter option is quite common, but it's starting to become a lot less safe, so hopefully that will push more companies to seriously evaluate other options.
By the way, I recently interviewed the creators of a Linux-based handheld and asked them why they picked Linux over a BSD variant. Their answer had nothing to do with the relative technical merits of the platforms; they said it was simply to do with brand recognitions. If you say 'Linux based' then geeks buy it and non-geeks have probably heard something positive about Linux, even if they can't tell you what it is. If you say 'BSD-based' then a few geeks buy it and no one else knows what it means, so you don't get any marketing advantage.
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