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Court Case To Test GNU GPL

Posted by Soulskill on from the doesn't-play-nice-with-others dept.

ciaran_o_riordan writes "Tomorrow, a German court will hear the case of AVM, a distributor of Linux-based routers, which seeks to block Cybits from distributing software that modifies the routers' software to add content-filtering functionality. Free Software Foundation Europe explains: 'AVM justified its position using three arguments. First, they stated that their whole product software must be regarded as an entity under AVM copyright, and that this entity must not be modified. The position Mr. Welte [founder of gpl-violations.org and copyright holder of several parts of the Linux kernel] took was that the whole product software would in that case be a derivative work according to the GPL, and thus the whole product software should be licensed under the GNU GPL. AVM then switched to a second argument: that the software embedded on its DSL terminals consisted of several parts. According to Mr. Welte, AVM could then not prohibit anyone from modifying or distributing the GPL licensed software parts. The final argument by AVM was that the software on their DSL terminals is a composition of several different programs, which, due to the creative process, would be a protected compilation and thus under the copyright of AVM and not affected by the copyleft of the GPL.'"

10 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Ethically and intellectually challenged... by pieterh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've been making my software GPLd since 1991. If someone uses it, for free, and makes a derived work, and then tries to stop others from sharing that work, they are ethically and intellectually challenged.

    This is not a test case for the GPL, it's a straight-forward copyright violation case, where AVM is taking the work of tens of thousands of people, using it under a license that permits remixing, and then attempting to ignore those license conditions.

    Take them to the cleaners, Harald!

    --
    My blog
    1. Re:Ethically and intellectually challenged... by tomhudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ethically and intellectually challenged.

      No. Their ethics may conflict with yours and nothing can be said about their intelligence.

      On the topic of ethics, they are more than just "ethically challenged" - they're hypocrites and crooks. Hypocrites, because they are saying "do as I say, not as I do" with respect to software licensing, and crooks because they are selling other people's work as if it were their own and without their permission (if you don't agree to the terms of the GPL, you cannot redistribute).

      Intellectually challenged? They're wasting money on a lost cause. Not smart ... :-)

    2. Re:Ethically and intellectually challenged... by VGPowerlord · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What if you consider the GPL unethical?

      Then don't redistribute software that is GPL-licensed.

      What if you consider that might makes right?

      Then the courts will properly and forcefully correct you and bar the distribution of your products until you comply with the license you accepted or make a new version that doesn't use someone else's work.

      To imply that not following a software licence is unethical per se suggests a worrying level of conformity.

      It's not like someone told them "YOU MUST USE LINUX ON YOUR ROUTER OR I'LL KILL YOU." The consciously made the choice to use Linux in their router system, and are now breaking its license terms.

      They could just as easily gone with a BSD, or paid money to someone to license a commercial OS, or designed their own OS. They chose to do none of the above, and are thus bound by the GPLv2.

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    3. Re:Ethically and intellectually challenged... by JAlexoi · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Egh... GPLv2 specifies that a derivative work is defined by the relevant copyright law. In this case, it's the German Author's rights law.

  2. Ethically OR intellectually challenged. by kerobaros · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I think he's half right. Either the company is intelligent yet ethically challenged, in that they know that they are violating the GPL yet do not care, or they are ethically sound but intellectually challenged, in that they don't know they're controverting the license. I believe one of these scenarios is the case.

  3. I don't think so by Rene+S.+Hollan · · Score: 4, Informative

    1. This violates the GPL over the GPL-licensed parts of the whole, and therefore the GPL-licensed parts have to be excluded when the whole is distributed. The same reasoning applies if the restriction is due to a compilation copyright over the whole or a license regarding use that prohibits modification.

    2. Irrelevant: the GPL parts continue to be licensed under the GPL or they can not be redistributed. The GPL permission for compilations does not weaken the GPL license for GPL components so compiled.

    3. All a compilation copyright means is that no one else can redistribute the compilation. However, it can not restrict redistribution of the GPL licensed parts.

    About the only case that can be made is that modified routers can't be sold, but routers could be sold along with the means to modify them. Or a router could be sold, and someone hired to modify it.

    Of course, I am not a lawyer, and would welcome one correcting any error I made above.

    --
    In Liberty, Rene
  4. AVM itself is in violation of the license by doperative · · Score: 4, Interesting

    "Ironically, by preventing others from enacting the rights granted by the GNU GPL, AVM itself is in violation of the license terms. Therefore they have no right to distribute the software" says Till Jaeger.

  5. Re:In addition, the compilation is under the GPL by Xtifr · · Score: 4, Informative

    In addition, a compilation is a derived work

    Not legally, no. To create a compilation, you do need rights to publish each part, but you do not need permission to modify or prepare derivative works. And even if that weren't the case, the GPL explicitly has an exception.

    From v3: "Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate."

    From v2: "In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License."

  6. It is more subtle than you think by feenberg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to the article, the defendent is not distributing code containing GPL code. Rather, they are distributing a program that reads from a DSL router and modifies the (perfectly legal) GPL code on the router, reinstalling the modified code. The defendent doesn't think this is a violation, since he does not distribute any GPL code to users, only the binary "diffs". The modified code is never "distributed", only installed on the individuals own router. Since the GPL limits distribution, but doesn't affect "internal" use, there is an argument that the GPL is not violated. However, there is a further section in the GPL that takes up just this point, which is quite orthogonal to any of the arguments posted here. Even if this section of the GPL was not enforced in Germany, it wouldn't be the end of the GPL, as this is an extremely inconvinient way to distribute software, and the liklihood that the "diffs" didn't include GPL code is very small.

  7. Re:Why does AVM have a problem in the first place? by Ruzty · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Because AVM sells other products, at a higher price/profit, which contain those additional features. They want to protect their revenue stream.

    --
    The Master (Angelo Rossitto) in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, "Not shit, energy!"