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SFLC Sues 14 Companies For BusyBox GPL Violations
eldavojohn writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has filed a lawsuit accusing fourteen companies, including Best Buy, Samsung and Westinghouse, of violating the GPL in nearly 20 separate products. This is similar to earlier BusyBox GPL suits. The commercial uses of BusyBox must be much more prolific than anyone could have imagined. Having dealt with hundreds of compliance problems and finding an average of one violation per day, the SFLC recommends one thing: be responsive to their requests (they try to settle things in private first) lest you find one of these (PDF) in your inbox."
Is it affected?
On one hand the GPL violations are not so great...however action like this isn't going to encourage people to embrace open source...
Everyone that disagrees with me is a paid shill
The SFLC always makes contact and in good faith requests a response, compliance with the licence terms or other remedy in a reasonable time period.
So actions like these encourage people to embrace open source in an entirely legal manner rather than corporate interests ripping off the open source community.
Code Error: Wrong + Wrong != Right
Unlike the patent trolls and the **AA, at least these guys do it right. You don't find a summons showing up without knowing that one is coming, there's no extortionist tactics, and they're not doing it for profit motive.
Now why in the hell don't we see state/federal laws that require such behavior? I mean, why not have something sane like a law detailing that first the litigant must prove that they spent at least x days/weeks/months trying to negotiate a change in behavior first, and must prove that they had done so in a good faith effort? (that last part is important, as otherwise one could see the likes of the RIAA sending some ungodly demand down, then claiming that they "tried")?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Big fucking deal. Follow the license or don't use the code.
Yeah, right. "Hey, instead of using Linux, let's write our own kernel."
So, err, there's no risk of a lawsuit by stealing someone else's proprietary code? I sincerely beg to differ on that one.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You don't need the license to *use* the code.
Hey, if it causes those upper managements to stop trying to sell the hard work of others (who don't even work for them!) for their own profit, more power to it. Any legal department would be able to tell you quite simply that the only thing you have to do when you release the product is release the source code you've modified (and not even that if it's a BSD-type license).
Yeah, because if you steal commercial code and hide it in your product, you're sooo much better off.
Or they may take steps to ensure they're within the bounds of the license, just like they would have to for pretty much any other alternative proprietary library. I'm very glad that corporations use GPL code; they just need to understand it.
I'm a GPL advocate and actually, I'd be ecstatic if a major corporation decided to use GPL code -- as long as they adhered to the terms of the license and released the code along with the binary.
Other than that, yeah, if a company's not going to adhere to the license, I really would not want them using the code.
By use, I mean incorporate into your product or create a derivative work.
If this were a concern, they'd already be using embedded BSD everywhere. Which BSD is very good for, but Linux is ridiculously more popular. Why is that, d'you think?
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Fear drives management. There are many worse things to fear, such as the cost of using proprietary software, and the risks and costs of a BSA audit. Recall their attention to the bottom line, and they'll likely change their tune. Not all management is bad.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
They gave them fair warning. If they don't defend the GPL it loses it's strength.
If you are unable to follow the licence, you shouldn't be using the code, simple as that...
Sent from my PDP-11
Which is still possible without releasing any source code.
The keyword here is "distributing" - even if you don't create a derivative at all.
It doesn't kill OSS, it kills the use of GPL'ed code. With our proprietary products, we were extremely careful that if we did use other code/libraries that they were either BSD or MIT style licenses.
Why do people forget that OSS is more than just the GPL?
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
In other news, thousands of corporate gpl users reevaluate violating the license.
Fixed that for you.
I feel dirty.
Unfortunately, this may be the kind of thing that makes upper management kill OSS in the shop. Who wants to risk a lawsuit? Forget that they have nothing to do with each other.
Yeah, I can see how that would play:
"Wait, what? This software has rules? We have to follow rules?!? And we get sued if we don't???!! Sandra, call my congressman, and take a memo: No more, uh, G-L-P software until we get this fixed!"
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Congratulations?
I don't know much about this product, but in general...
If there is a community supported project then
a) Who gets to sue companies/people who violate the project's GPL or other open source license
b) Who gets paid should the lawsuit be successful
c) Who gets in debt should the lawsuit not be successful?
d) Who funds the lawsuit?
e) Doesn't the possibility exist for "open source trolls" who scour the world looking for GPL/Apache/BSD/whatever violations and sue the offender hoping to make a few dollars?
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
A little over two years ago, I discovered that my VersaTek modem was using Linux/BusyBox. I requested the source, and the company refused saying that their Chinese OEM didn't give it to them, so that they couldn't give it to me. This is, of course, still a violation of the GPL in the same way that selling a stolen stereo doesn't change the fact that the stereo is stolen.
I mailed a report of this to the BusyBox author, and this morning the SFLC sent me an e-mail letting me know that VersaTek was being included in this lawsuit. They don't mention the specific VersaTek product that I notified them about, but it's nice that they followed up.
Sic 'em boyz !!
But it will not stop that.
All you have to do is include a link to the source on your website and a GPL statment with the product.
You don't even have to include a link to the source you could "require" that they send you a written letter and pay for shipping of the source.
Which frankly is all just silly.
The source for BusyBox is freely available already so an extra link will not really make it any more free. Those are the rules but except for including the GPL in the docs for the product I see little value in the link to the source except to cross the t's and dot the i's.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
You mean, like Google?
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Management only fears one thing worse than expenses: the unknown. The GPL ecosystem is completely unknown to a lot of the gray-hairs that don't understand that software is not a physical product like a coffee pot. The economy changes when your cost to replicate a thing is effectively zero. That's why a lot of companies pay a ton of cash to MySQL and other open-source software companies... they just don't want to have to think about the licensing, they want to do it the old way.
And then have their nephew install Office on every computer from the same, single, legal install disc.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
In other news, thousands of corporate gpl users reevaluate their use of gpl software. I know... Many gpl advocates are ecstatic at the idea of corporations not using gpl code.
Any sane corporate user of software knows that software comes with a license, and at a price. If the software you use is licensed under GPL, the price is the cost and the effort of putting the source code on your web site for anyone to download. If the people responsible for software licensing are too stupid to read the GPL license, they deserve all that they get. Nobody wants corporate users who use GPL software because they are too stupid to read a license. And certainly nobody wants corporate users who use GPL'd software because they think they can rip off GPL software.
But any corporate user with more than half a braincell understands what the GPL is about and either uses GPL software or they don't, based on the quality and the cost.
While I like your sentiment, your statement is wrong. You can selectively enforce copyright all you want.
It's trademarks that lose strength if you don't enforce them.
Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?
Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide “equivalent access” to download the source—therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.
It looks to me that I can charge $1,000,000 for my GPL software and charge another $1,000,000 for the source.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
Because the folks using BSD- and MIT-style licenses don't care if the license terms are ignored?
No, wait, they do care. Funny that.
Sure you do. That is why bison and gcc come with GPL exceptions, and why every binary created with GNAT GPL Edition must be distributed under GPL.
Down with that myth. Using GPL programs can put restrictions on the output of these programs.
What the hell, I have karma to burn: It doesn't sound as nice when I put it that way, does it?
Granted, (before I get 20 responses telling me just how many ways the SFLC is different than the RIAA), I acknowledge that the tactics that the SFLC is using are actually sane and civil. The point remains, however: all the pirate supporters on this website don't like it when you shove their arguments back in their face. If there were no copyright, or if copyright were limited to 2 years, then Linux 2.6.15 would be in the public domain by now and anyone could put it into any product they wanted without giving back to the people that created it.
Here's a list of [some of] the infringing devices from page 8 of the PDF:
Player
HDTV
WDBABF0000NBK WD TV HD Media Player
Airlink101 AICAP650W IP Motion Wireless Camera
radio outdoor wireless access point
security system DVR devices
Those companies were offered the use of copyrighted code under certain terms, had every opportunity to learn those terms, and either willfully or negligently violated them. Dragging their asses into civil court is not "wrong." If anyone belongs there over a copyright beef, it's them.
why is this so hard for corps to get? the gpl is basically like any other proprietary license except that the 'fee' for use is any additional code that you add yourself to a particular binary. It's really not a big deal. If you can swallow microsoft's EULAs then gpl shouldn't cause you to break a sweat.
Wouldn't the use of BusyBox inside a DVD player be for debugging use only? In other words, great for the developer, but useless for the end customer?
In which case - why didn't they simply remove it from the shipping version? They are free to use it as an internal tool, just not ship it with the product. Satisfies everyone - engineers, upper management, and the OSS lawyers.
The point remains, however: all the pirate supporters on this website don't like it when you shove their arguments back in their face.
Which pirate supporters are you referring to?
Of course you are. With closed source software, you are far less likely to get caught in the first place, and secondly even if you do, you can always buy the company (and their IP) outright or just negotiate a license. No need to give away valuable secrets.
This is not rocket science, kids, it's called "capitalism", look into it.
Considering that it is used in over 20 of their products (N.B.: I have no idea how many products BusyBox is used in. These 20 products are just the ones produced by a certain set of companies that are non-compliant. I would speculate that BusyBox is used in far more products where they are compliant) I think we can probably throw out the idea that it is crap.
Considering that it is very easy to comply with GPL as many other posters have pointed out we can throw out the idea that it is a legal mine field. The SFLC didn't even come after them demanding compensation for the previously shipped units. They simply asked them to come into compliance and it was only when they refused that the SFLC filed suit.
But... it wouldn't have been the same with PD software (like this), which is actually free, as opposed to "we will ruin your life with lawyers if you use it any way but how we tell you", which is a summary of GPL-poisoned software.
The GPL is a travesty foisted off on the programming community - it is anti-progress and a wasteful time sink and anti-freedom and court fodder and lawyer bait. Other than that, of course, it's just great. :/
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
So this is how you make money with F/OSS.
1.) Write F/OSS.
2.) File Lawsuits against infringers.
3.) ???
4.) Profit!!!
I'm curious... how much money would he have made from the software if he didn't sue?
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
You can selectively enforce copyright all you want.
It's trademarks that lose strength if you don't enforce them.
Not exactly. Copyright and patent claims are still subject to laches, even if the penalty for delay is weaker than for a trademark claim.
Busybox is used for setting up the ethernet interface most devices seem to have these days and to manage the internal filesystem most devices have for caching & downloadable content. Well thats what its for in the box I have. I wish they'd activated the HTTP server in Busybox aswell as then I could have some access to the content on the box from elsewhere on my home network.
License terms for permissive free software licenses amount to the following: "You must credit us in x way." Unlike a copyleft license, this doesn't subvert any proprietary software business model. Compare this to the difference between CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licenses.
You can potentially buy off or negotiate a license with someone who wrote GPL code too, whoever holds the copyright on the code is free to make it available to you under different terms.
With closed source you're far less likely to do it in the first place, since not having the source will impair your ability to integrate it into your product... But it has happened.
With closed source you could be much worse off, the vendor may be too big for you to buy out, and may refuse to license the code to you at all. At least with the GPL you have a clear path in order to be legal, and so long as you comply with the GPL there's nothing anyone can do against you.
As for giving away secrets, that entirely depends on how the rest of your product interacts with the GPL components, and if it's really that important to you then write your own code instead of using someone else's.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Uh...that's NOT a foregone conclusion...
For example...if you did that with some of Microsoft's code, I can assure you that you can't "buy the company" nor will you be in a good position to negotiate anything other than an assraping from their legal department or from the BSA.
This, honestly, is little different here- and people that try to paint it differently don't have the foggiest what they're talking about or are trying to sell you something...
Unfortunately for them, the "old way" doesn't remove the requirements to think about the licensing.
Under no terms should ANY manager or exec be led to think they don't have to worry about license terms- period. Even with "buying" you have all sorts of landmines within the licensing that buying doesn't even avoid.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
That depends on what you mean by "use". Typically people mean executing a program, running the software. The terms of the GPLv2 (Busybox's license) do not compel one to do anything upon running the software. And this quality is not unique to the GPL.
Digital Citizen
Somebody should create closed source versions of the open source projects that are most often ripped off. Then give away (or sell) the proprietary versions. I don't mean fork it. I mean from scratch, in a clean room environment, to keep it untainted. It's the reverse situation of making an open source alternative to a free product.
And if you're that worried about secrets, write your own damn code and don't use the GPL. Simple.
Can you point to serious refutations of copyright where the point of the argument is that copyright should last 2 years or not exist at all? FSF speakers have long pointed out the problem of no copyright, a very short term of copyright, and overly long copyright. My experience is that calls for no or very short terms of copyright are posited by people who ought to reconsider what is in society's best interests.
No copyright means no end to the tyranny of proprietary software (said programs never enter the public domain even on paper), no way for free software developers to require credit when building on their work (as some free software licenses require), and no reciprocal contribution to the commons when distributing or conveying the work or a derivative (like the GPL does).
Short terms of copyright (like the 2-year term you mention) means that proprietors can incorporate strongly copylefted work into their proprietary software during the time in which the software is reasonably current and likely to provide a competitive edge. This means even those who want to a defensible commons (like what the GPL maintains) cannot do so based on copyright law alone. A short term of copyright came up in Richard Stallman's critique of the Swedish Pirate Party:
Most countries give people the means to place their work into the public domain immediately upon publication or else waive copyright restrictions their laws mandate. Building the PD in this way simply doesn't strike me as an impediment to social progress. But those looking to provide alternatives to proprietary software in order to share freedom for all computer users don't have the PD as a viable option; we would be universal donors and proprietors would build upon our works as universal recipients. I certainly don't want to treat proprietors as charities.
Digital Citizen
Finally, some semblance of sanity.
Can you point to serious refutations of copyright where the point of the argument is that copyright should last 2 years or not exist at all?
No. The only arguments I have heard in this vein are from Slashdotters who like The Pirate Bay too much.
My experience is that calls for no or very short terms of copyright are posited by people who ought to reconsider what is in society's best interests.
Agreed again.
I can't ascertain your position on copyright from your post. Stallman seems to grudgingly favor a medium-length copyright out of necessity, a "least evil" approach if you will, where he thinks copyright in and of itself is generally evil. I don't agree with that. From what I can tell, Stallman thinks that all software should be developed and effectively given away gratis (which is basically one of his goals if I understand them correctly). I think that leads to two conclusions: a) software developers cannot function as software developers in a capitalist society, they have to do something else to pay bills like sell hardware that uses their software, or mop floors at Wendy's, or b) Stallman really wants a communist society. I don't like either a or b, so I can't call copyright evil on its face.
Paragraph 31 of the complaint asserts that "Mr. Andersen is, and at all relevant times has been, a copyright owner"
Really? Has there been an assignment by the authors of all of the pieces of busybox? (Wasn't Bruce Perens the original author?)
I've seen the FSF do a good job of getting those assignments, but I don't see any claim of those here.
And without those assignments Paragraph 31 might be construed as incorrect. And without formal registrations of all of the pieces by all of the authors (or a cumulative registration supported by assignments) there could be some weakness in this complaint.
Well it's not like you could redistribute a proprietary app without following the license and not risk a lawsuit. Seeing as it is trivial to comply with all OSS it will actually reduce your chances of a lawsuit.
Although it is disappointing that Google has not shared many of their improvements to GPL'd software, it is important to point out that, since said modified software is used exclusively in-house and not distributed, Google has not broken the license.
No sig for the moment.
Seriously how does this shit get modded up? And how is it still modded up after it falls flat on it's face for being wrong. Iwsimon please stop posting if you don't know what you're talking about. Please stick with windows is super comments as you don't understand what the point of free software is.
I suppose it may not be obvious but there are many more possibilities besides selling hardware and working at Wendy's. There are many developers today who are working as developers on open source projects as employees of companies like Red Hat, IBM, TrollTech, etc.
I could be wrong but I suspect your concern is less about making money as a developer and more about making profits off control of distribution.
I understand that open source licensing requires new ideas on commercializing developer skills but at the same time I also understand that the closed source proprietary software method with licensing while profitable is a false market. After a product is developed the cost of reproduction and even distribution is virtually $0.00.
This creates a huge potential for profit margins as long as you can maintain a fake scarcity of product supply. With open source licensing these fake markets are coming under pressure to compete in ways that is going to hit those profit margins.
I agree that communism would be a huge mistake but I also disagree that open source, limited copyrights, or even a lack of copyrights would result in software developers being limited to selling hardware or working at Wendy's.
Actually the troll's logic was on the right track. Upper management wont see the difference between GPLed code, BSDed, MITed, Apached, etc.
But the troll is wrong about this killing any OSS. If the knee jerk reaction of company A is to stop using OSS code while there competitor, company B, adheres to the licensing then company A will have to endure the additional burden of the profit margins necessary to support their proprietary supplier while their competitor company B will continue to reap the benefits of the open source code in their products simply by adhering to the licensing.
'white man' is suddenly an acceptable expression?
Fuck off and die, Argent, you worthless human shit race-provoker.
What a great way to encourage use of open-source software: sue people! Oh, wait, you say you aren't suing them for using the source code, but because they refuse to release their modifications? Hmmm.... er, well nevermind, carry on. Why are they having so much trouble releasing their modifications when someone requests them?
A nice list of all of the same assholes that constantly whine about how their IP is being stolen. Funny how everybody else is the pirate/bad guy/criminal/whatever but the logic never applies to them.
I suppose it may not be obvious but there are many more possibilities besides selling hardware and working at Wendy's. There are many developers today who are working as developers on open source projects as employees of companies like Red Hat, IBM, TrollTech, etc.
That's true, but I would say that a lot of those companies make money (and thus pay their free software developers) via selling hardware, or selling their software in conjunction with support or ancillary services. In other words, software as a primary means of generating revenue is not viable.
I could be wrong but I suspect your concern is less about making money as a developer and more about making profits off control of distribution.
Not really...I am mostly concerned with software developers making money for developing software. I suppose that is not clear from any of my posts.
I understand that open source licensing requires new ideas on commercializing developer skills but at the same time I also understand that the closed source proprietary software method with licensing while profitable is a false market. After a product is developed the cost of reproduction and even distribution is virtually $0.00.
Agreed, but there is still the initial creation cost. In the proprietary model, which admittedly is a false market, the creation cost gets amortized in with every sale, so that once X units are sold, the developers' salaries are paid. I guess what I'm saying is that I never saw a problem with this model, other than the closed nature of the software post-sale.
From what I read of Busybox, it provides init and a shell, both of which are used implicitly during bootup of the device. There is no way to strip Busybox from the release or shipping verison. Everything else is certainly only useful to the dev.
The source for BusyBox is freely available already so an extra link will not really make it any more free. Those are the rules but except for including the GPL in the docs for the product I see little value in the link to the source except to cross the t's and dot the i's.
Well, it's entirely possible that they've added or tweaked busybox code for their own product, in which case they would have to do a little more work, but it's still not much of a problem.
The only reason I could see a company really avoiding it is if they've worked some sort of DRM or other 'secrets' into the code that they don't want to go public, or if they've closely intermixed the GPL source with, say, other proprietary code that they don't have the license to release. I'm not sure in that second case WHAT should be done, since they legally can't release the code, nor can they legally NOT release the code. That might require pulling the product off the market, and firing a manager that thought licenses didn't matter.
Doesn't matter. They perceive it as less risk because they're trading money for a service or product. Trading a nearly free service for a valuable product? What's the catch? Or they get wind of the "catch" and perceive it to be "give all of your software away free if you even look at the GPL!" and it gets shitcanned that way.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Seriously, open the PDF and go to page 12.
Whoever signed that obviously doesn't have a chequebook or a credit card!
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
And I'd have to agree that there is nothing inherently wrong with the model either. It definitely works out to the advantage of the developer or corporation that is the copyright holder and places the end user at a significant disadvantage but I don't find it to be wrong. And I suspect there will be instances where software will remain closed source and proprietary in order to maintain a viable balance between those initial development costs and the size of the market.
But I would add that in most cases the developer will be working for a company providing licensing and services around the developed software no different than if they worked for a company that provided hardware with services. In most cases its not going to make any difference for the developers themselves.
In my opinion open source has increased market potential for developers by lowering the licensing cost barrier for many end users. The only real threat here is to the 98% profit margins of some software licensing companies and their fat boards and management structures.
Restrictive licenses like (L)GPL rely on government force, which makes it no different ethically than proprietary software, and its viral and economically unsustainable nature makes it even worse!
Only permissively-licensed software like BSD and Apache is truly "free", and there's nothing wrong with using proprietary software if it makes economic sense to do so.
Software freedom should be driven by free market competition, not government force!
(See my post history for more info.)
This will get modded down to hell for this, but:
This is great. This is *why* the GPL is great. The *BSD crowd just whine when companies "make money from *BSD without giving back", and think the GPL is some manifesto against ever charging money (which is news to Red Hat).
Having been on the receiving end of a GPL violation summon, and spending lots of time trying to fix the issue I believe I can explain the situation in a couple of simple sentence.
EU and US companies do not make hardware (although there are exceptions it doesn't really matter), so they do not have any real control on what's in the boxes they distribute under their brands.
Retail is a cutthroat business managed by goons who have no clue and no interest in technology, and for them free is "no cost", GPL takes more than two sentences to describe, it is over their attention span,they are not interested.
The Chineese/Taiwaneese OEM are strongly nationalistic and for them Intellectual Property is something you keep in China/Taiwan, foreign IP (including GPL) is irrelevant.
Moreover they do not control most of the IP they use, since it is done by the chip makers, and complying with the GPL would reveal how little value they add and how easy it would be to replace them. (and since they are also in a cutthroat business they expect their clients to go away for a 2% gain (well a 0.5% gain is actually enough).
The Chip makers have convoluted cross licencing agreements and are routinely counterfeiting each others patents, so they actually have no idea what they could release or not, so they do not release, and since they are "far away" from the end product they are also "far away" from the suit.
And particularly the "suit" that is responsible for any product, patent, gpl violation know that s/he will be in another job very long before anything "hits" him or her... (mostly him, equal opportunity in international IT, .. a long way to go).
So to answer the GP, the upper management is not screaming "follow the license or don't use the code" but "bring that product out right now ! and don't bother me with any commie(US manager)/Anarchist(Cineese manager) mumbo jumbo, anyway my lawyer explained to me that there are a lot of ways to interpret the GPL license... (meaning I have no idea what s/he was speaking about it seems complicated enough to confuse any judge, so it's cool we have more money than a bunch of long haired hippies).
And the only real thing we can do in the long term is:
STOP BUYING LOW QUALITY TOYS THAT WE WILL DISCARD SOON (sorry for screaming)
Remember the triple damages... That price will be included in the buying price of Microsoft, SAP, or however you decide buy.
Okay, my commercial, and definitely closed-source embedded product uses Linux and Busybox (plus a big closed-source app running on top of that, doing the actual work). This is an industrial device, costing good 5-digit figure. There are some small modifications to the kernel that can be released (but serve no real point for the "real world", because they are tailored for the app and underlying proprietary hardware). It is also about impossible anyone would ever wish to mess with the code, simply because of risk associated with screwing up the expensive hardware.
What is the best, right way to comply with GPL? Publish kernel+modules+sources on WWW? Attach a CD to the documentation book? How much am I required to publish?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
Well, it wouldn't actually surprise me if some stuff isn't run as a compiled binary, but rather as a script. For instance some DVD players supply firmware upgrades via CD. Figuring out which firmware to load from the CD, checksumming, loading etc. is all very doable from a shell script.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
While on the topic, I have a question. Is releasing the source code to whatever copyleft software you are using actually enough for compliance? For example, suppose I made a device and used a modified Linux kernel, some kind of build from unmodified Busybox sources and some proprietary software, would offering a download of the modified Linux source code and a download of the Busybox source code exactly as the Busybox project supplies it be enough?
Note that while such releases would presumably allow one to build ones own kernel and Busybox based on the same sources being used in the product, there would be no scripts or instructions for re-creating the same kernel and Busybox binaries used in the product, let alone instructions for creating a complete, usable firmware image for the product.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
I got one of their ME1 multimedia enclosures. It's great, and uses Busybox. I can't find the source code anywhere on their web site.
http://www.emprex.com/03_support_02.php?pg_no=10&group=84&kind=1
Major correction. We do want people embracing open source [...] If it happens to be free software as well, they just need to release the source code to their new product as well.
You are aware that the GPL is both an Open Source and a Free Software license, right? How does the label you choose to attach to it (OSS vs. FS) change what the redistributor has to do? Right, it doesn't. I think you're confusing OSS with F/OSS and Free Software with Copyleft.
See http://www.opensource.org/licenses/alphabetical -- you'll notice that the GPL is on there. And here's the definition: http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php
Very few open source licenses forbid the commercialization of code.
That would be zero. "The license shall not restrict any party from selling [...]". It's the same for free software.
We want people embracing F/OSS, taking the code, creating their own product, and selling it, as long as they are in compliance with all the relevant licenses, no matter whether those licenses are Open Source, Free or both; no matter whether the licenses are copyleft or not. Make a killing, and we're all happy as long as you stick to the licenses.
I don't see that definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
I would rather see a company use BSD code and publish their changes.
Open Source + Proof of Company not being just a money hungry leech on society (in at least a tiny way)
XML - A clever joke would be here if
Best Buy
Samsung Electronics America
Westinghouse Digital Electronics
JVC Americas Corporation
Western Digital Technologies
Robert Bosch
Phoebe Micro
Humax USA
Comtrend Corporation
Dobbs-Stanford Corporation
Versa Technology
Zyxel Communications
Astak
GCI Technologies Corporation
OK, I read the PDF. First thing that grabbed me was "Judge Scheindlin".
Isn't that the judge on Judge Judy?
A license that prevents you from restricting my freedom is somehow restrictive ? I don't think so, trollie ;)
> (See my post history for more info.)
NO !!!
Well, I'm not sure how serious I am, but I'd like to see copyright abolished.
Well, I think the BSD folks would argue that free software would still exist. Don't most EULAs depend on copyright to enforce their terms too?
Not so. An attribution law does not require a copyright law. We could have one without the other, if it was deemed necessary.
Again, there could be a separate non-copyright law covering this situation, but personally I'd rather we did without.
I'm a keen GPL supporter, but that's because it makes something useful out of the "evil" of copyright. I'd happily sacrifice the minor "good" to remove the major "evil".
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
But it will not stop that.
All you have to do is include a link to the source on your website and a GPL statment with the product.
You don't even have to include a link to the source you could "require" that they send you a written letter and pay for shipping of the source.
Which frankly is all just silly.
The source for BusyBox is freely available already so an extra link will not really make it any more free.
Dude, you have to make available also the _changes_ you made to the busybox code. e.g. some patches.
Really. I read the complaint, and it sounds pretty leak-proof, but don't you think they should be suing the manufacturers of the products, instead of the poor retail stores? Because really—what could Best Buy do about this? Not sell stuff? No, the manufacturer should be made to include the GPL in the manual of the affected products, with a link to where one can download the source code. I think that would be fair. As it stands, though, I think they should go through with the lawsuit, and bring it to the attention of the public that Free Software (as in Freedom) is not something rare and unclean, but something that none of us could live without in modern life.
Not really...I am mostly concerned with software developers making money for developing software. I suppose that is not clear from any of my posts.
People who work for companies that make shiny shrink-wrapped cardboard boxes sold to end-users are few and far between, vast majority of all software developers are making money for developing customized in-house software, a market which would probably not even notice if copyrights were abolished tomorrow.
Yes, because there are no open source, non-GPL'd, kernels around. They'd obviously have to start completely from scratch.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Brand recognition was the answer I got the last time I asked a company producing an embedded system why they went with Linux over *BSD.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Have you ever used busybox?
I doubt that they tweaked it but if they did contributing the code to maintainer would seem to be the better choice that putting a link on your website.
The problem with busybox and I don't really think it is a big problem is that each device will more or less use a custom version.
When you build busybox you have the option to pick and choose what commands you put in your build.
So do you need to have a link to your config or just the standard source package? What is the "source" in this case and what is a modification.
Frankly just including the config to be safe isn't an issue for most companies.
The problem is jumping through hoops to make sure you are not breaking the agreement.
It is extremely likey that these devices are using a stock busybox that they just did a menuconfig on.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yep. So they can release their GPL derivatives. There's no way it's onerous to do so.
(By the way: under US law, copyrighted content counts as an exchange of value. The record companies wrote that in to make copy exchange count as financial value, but it applies to code as well. And in reality as well as law, I'd assert - they use GPLed software because it is of value, therefore they get value, therefore they are due to pay the price for doing so, which is to release one's modifications.)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
If they made any patches. I really doubt that they did. Have you ever used busybox? It is great but the way most people will use it on a device is to use a menuconfig and include only the commands that they need for the device. That is about the only "change" most developers will make to busybox because that is really all they need to do.
Yes if they made any patches they should contribute them back but do we know that the did?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Case in point, Microsoft's original TCP/IP stack was based on BSD licensed Spider (spyder? Too lazy to check). It shipped with Windows under a proprietary license and IIRC the BSD attribution could be found if you grepped the libraries binaries. That was way before my time, though (I'm 25), so I might not have it exactly correct.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
No the GPL is just somewhere between "actually free" and totally proprietary...
Freedom and benefit aren't always tightly coupled. GPL optimizes community benefit at the expense of individual freedom. BSD optimizes for individual benefit, and sometimes the community suffers (in the opportunity cost sense) for it. Sometimes though BSD gets a company on board and the community gets the leavings, if not the main course. GPL forces the issue, but may eliminate some opportunities if it's the only choice.
Fortunately the evolved status quo (GPL + BSD + others) covers the field pretty well, so we have a good answer for most customers.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Sorry, sorry, sorry for yelling in the title.
Parent characterizes open source, free software and the different between those quite inaccurately. See my longer explanation at http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1478140&cid=30441788
(Also, non-copyleft licenses can be free, so parent's claim of "Free Software (implies) Must Release Source" is wrong as well).
Would someone please see to it that this post which spreads misinformation (innocently, I assume) isn't modded informative?
If it runs busybox, *you* can turn on that HTTP server yourself! =)