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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."
And Microsoft shouldn't sue any of the Mom-n-Pop computer shops for selling boxes with phony Windows license keys, as it would discourage anyone from selling boxes based on commercial / propriatary software.
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?
I have to give credit to Sharp. I bought an Aquos 52" TV this past year and they included the GPL statements and a link to obtain busybox on their site. The link wasn't working at first and I emailed them to get the source and the link started working again the next day. Following the rules isn't all that hard to do. I don't see why there would be such a huge problem with companies providing a link.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
Major correction. We do want people embracing open source if by "embrace" they mean "take this free code, create my own product, and sell it". If it happens to be free software as well, they just need to release the source code to their new product as well. If it's BSD or some other open source license, the conditions might be different (attribution in advertising, possibly). Very few open source licenses forbid the commercialization of code.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
We don't want people embracing open source if by "embrace" they mean "take this free code, create my own product, and sell it".
No, you're dead wrong. The GPL allows exactly what you're describing.
It attaches a condition to that, though: It also says, 'Anything you distribute has to be available in source form as well.'
It's bad enough that proprietary software apologists try constantly to conflate the terms 'proprietary' and 'commercial' without GPL supporters showing equal ignorance. Proprietary software has exactly nothing to do with whether it's commercial or not. GPL has exactly nothing to do with price.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
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.
a - b) The copyright holder or his/her appointed representative
c - d) The copyright holder or the organization which volunteers to file the lawsuit on the copyright holder's behalf
e) No -- the copyright holder is in charge of who gets sued
People can release code under any conditions they like, and I'm all for it. What I don't particularly like is false claims; and the claim that GPL code is "free" is one of those. It's no more free than commercial code is (and in fact, takes on much of the same character... do something we don't like and we'll sue you.) Because of the legal ramifications, it has real monetary cost as well; you think you're saving time, while your lawyer is planning on you paying for their new car. Or house. That's why I don't use GPL'd code, and why I don't use the GPL on my code. It's the same as commercial code - a legal minefield, and as such, totally not worth my time.
Forgive me, but I'm just not seeing the issue here.
The GPL boils down to the following:
If you don't want to follow these rules, don't use pre-existing GPL code as the basis for your product. Problem solved. Or, if you want to see if the author (or authors) is/are willing to re-license it under a different license for your project, you can do that too. And yes, there are additional details regarding patents and such, but the above is the gist of the license. Those additional details are intended to ensure that any downstream recipients won't be encumbered by other legal restrictions that may prevent them from exercising the rights they receive with the source code.
For all the complaining about the restrictions placed on them by the GPL, the above seems pretty simple to me. What am I missing? I must be missing something for all the complaints I read.