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Software Freedom Conservancy Wins GPL Case Against Westinghouse
fishthegeek writes "The Software Freedom Conservancy has received a judgement against Westinghouse Digital Electronics for $90,000 in damages, $50,000 in costs plus a donation of all of the offending HDTV's that were using BusyBox in violation of the GPL. Given that WDE is nearly bankrupt it's likely that most if not all of the cash will disappear in a legal 'poof,' but it is a victory regardless."
Isn't this the first proper test of GPL in a court of law?
As has been discussed in the million other websites that jumped on this news earlier in the week:
It wasn't so much a win as a "no contest":
- The company that's gone bankrupt, went bankrupt (in a real, non-SCO fashion) and couldn't have afforded to fight the case.
- The people handling the bankruptcy don't want the lawyers who were working the case representing them any more (presumably they stopped paying them).
- The lawyers handling the case stopped defending it because they were asked not to provide any further representation.
In many senses it was a "win by default" - it was unchallenged, they couldn't afford to challenge it, and they were bankrupt anyway. In terms of legal precedent, this is like saying "I *do* own an acre of the moon because I presented it in a case against NASA and NASA went bankrupt before they could file any defence whatsoever" and then using this as a legal precedent that everyone with the same paper as you owns an acre of the moon. It's not a "win", it's not even a "loss", it's just a "nothing" in legal terms.
..but what matters is that a judge has issued a ruling on the matters before the court.
Its a common practise to start with little guys to get precedents and then work your way up to the bigger fish; the bad guys (eg, patent trolls) have been using this technique for ages, so its no biggie if the Good Guys learn from them,
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
The GPL vs BSD license argument never gets old for some folk does it?
Some say BSD-like licenses are bad because they permit people to use the code in a closed, non-free way.
Some say GPL-like licenses are bad because they forbid the same behaviour.
Each to their own, but the GPL allows people who contribute to the public good to make sure that their work is not abused (as they see it), by taking their effort, profiting from it and not sharing back. If that's not the way you roll, so be it, but it gives freedom to users that the BSD license does not.
I know! Distinguishing between different situations is so hard! It strains my brain cell.
The enemies of Democracy are
I cannot figure out why the headline says that the EFF won this case. This case was brought by the Software Freedom Conservancy, with the Software Freedom Law Center acting as the Conservancy's legal counsel. The EFF was not, nor has ever been to my knowledge, involved in anything to do with the GPL.
Also, winning the whole case is probably inaccurate. What's been achieved here is a permanent injunction and judgment against one of the violators. Thus, the case against Westinghouse has been won, but there are other defendants in the case as well.
— bkuhn, President, Software Freedom Conservancy
One thing you can do is reverse engineer the product and keep an eye out for certain strings in the firmware. From what I have seen, most GPL violators do not even bother to try to cover their tracks, and will often leave author names, GPL notices, and so forth in the software. The biggest challenge with consumer electronics is actually reading the contents of the firmware; once you can do that, you can just do some basic checks.
Of course, that is not an easy thing to do, so it is possible that a number of consumer products contain GPL violations that go unnoticed.
Palm trees and 8
Slashdot readers might be interested to read the actual judgment as issued by the Court, which is available Conservancy's announcement of the decision. I also wrote a blog post about the decision that may be of interest.
— bkuhn, President, Software Freedom Conservancy
I don't think so. This is a court order assigning ownership of this property, not an unsecured debt. I think that it will be considered senior to the claims of the other creditors in the same way that a lien is senior to unpaid bills.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It does not cover bankruptcy at all, even indirectly.
Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 4. Which doesn't specify that all bankruptcies are to be in Federal court, just that the Congress may specify uniform treatment.
ob Onion
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Or, you could say, it TAKES freedom from users (ie: developers using a library) that the BSD license does not.
Not saying BSD is better, just saying GPL doesn't give "more freedoms" on a whole, it just assigns them to different people.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Please tell us how one would magically put their code into the public domain without first dying and then waiting a few decades. I think you can just release it with a statement that says something along the lines of "This software is public domain. I, the author, hereby forego any copyright on it." Or you could write it as part of your job while an employee of the United States government. There is a fair amount of numerical software that is public domain for that reason.
However, different state laws may impact how certain aspects of the bankruptcy, including what assets are protected, are handled.
Well obviously IANAL. I guess the next logical question is what happens when someone feels that the federal court has disrespected the state laws.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Don't forget all the firmware that you can download without so much as a serial number.
And then there's all the photos of serial numbers on the internet, which can reduce the number of unchecked cases still further.
Don't think that there's not nerds out there with nothing better to do than to download firmware and run it through strings.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Or, you could say, it TAKES freedom from users (ie: developers using a library) that the BSD license does not.
Wrong. It takes freedom from those developers only while they are wearing their distributor hats. They can use GPLed libraries as much as they like. They are just limited from distributing in a way that takes freedom away from users. Their freedom as _users_ is not harmed.
Not saying BSD is better, just saying GPL doesn't give "more freedoms" on a whole, it just assigns them to different people.
You are right here. It takes freedom away from distributors, and gives it _all_ to users. Just they are not necessarily different people, just different roles.
Oh look, a GPL violation in SCO UnixWare.
That was hard to find, wasn't it.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
I have to wonder if they did something completely insane like link their TV application software straight into the busybox executable because I can't think of any other reason to withold it upon request. If they did straight link then more fool them.