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Ask Slashdot: How Best To Deal With a GPLv2 License Infringement?
cultiv8 writes "I am a developer and released some code at one point under GPLv2. It's nothing huge — a small Drupal module that integrates a Drupal e-commerce system (i.e. Ubercart) with multiple Authorize.net accounts — but very useful for non-profits. Earlier today I discovered that a Drupal user was selling the module from their website for $49 and claiming it was their custom-made module. I'm no lawyer, but my perspective is this violates both the spirit and law of GPLv2, most specifically clause 2-b: 'You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.' Am I correct in my understanding of GPLv2? Do I have any recourse, and should I do anything about this? I don't care about money, I just don't want someone selling stuff that I released for free. How do most developers/organizations deal with licensing infringements of this type?"
posting on slashdot is like a DDOS for their site.
Post your question on the gpl-violations mailing list and we'll try to help you work through the details of any (perceived) GPL violation.
Short answer: Selling GPLed software (even software you did not personally author) is okay. However, you must correctly attribute the copyrighted work re: the upstream author(s), and you must comply with the terms of the GPL license, including providing the complete source.
coding is life
You can buy a scale Predator drone for less than $1000 and a basic AI package for it for maybe half that. A few flybys and maybe a leaflet drop should be sufficient.
Why do people release software under a license and then ask basic questions like this? Particularly, why do they need to ask Slashdot all the time?
The guy can try to sell your module all he wants, provided that a) He hasn't altered the copyright you placed on it (You did put a valid Copyright on each source file, in the GPL header, right?) and b) He makes the GPL sources available to anyone who has purchased a copy of the module and has then requested them, or anyone who has received a copy of the module and has requested them.
Basically, he can't claim its his and he can't change the license, but if anyone is dumb enough to give him cash for something they could get for free elsewhere, that's their problem. If you're still not sure, contact the FSF. Or, hell, just read their damn website!
They aren't actually selling his module.. it says:
We are providing complete support, configuration and installation for this module.
Not the same thing at all. Besides the FSF says selling GPL'd software is ok
You would have a case if they were claiming it was their module.. but I wasn't able to find even that on their site.
What GPL infringement?
link
Troll elsewhere.
Great Intellect...
1. Person A releases GPL code
2. Person B takes it and does modifications. Puts it up on site to sell @ $50. The purchaser gets the program AND the source code (if they want the source code).
3. Person A is angry but has *no case*.
Person A only has a case IFF Person B sells the modifications without releasing the source code with the modified binary.
Person A cannot even demand the source code modifications from Person B unless they *legally* acquire the modified binary.
If you have issues with this, please read and re-read GPL license or alternatively use non-GPL license.
PS. I do not know the details of this case are. But GPL does not imply "freeware" of any kind. It only affirms that GPL freedoms are passed to the user of (modified) GPL software.
See what GNU has to say. Note this quote from the second paragraph:
You are right that you can only charge a distribution fee, but that doesn't mean you can't charge as much as you want. The only limitation is that if you distribute the binary separate from the source, then you cannot charge customers extra for the source beyond what it costs to ship/distribute it (see 3b in the GPL v2).
Due to the truly amazing amount of information in your post that is inaccurate, I assume that you are either ...nevertheless, I'll provide some answers. Maybe it will be helpful for the OP.
1) a troll, or
2) 13 years old
Did the guy mention that he copyrighted his work? If he put it out there with nothing indicating that, there's an argument that he put it into the public domain,
If you don't trust me, how about the US Copyright Office?
Q: Do I have to register with your office to be protected?
A: No. In general, registration is voluntary. Copyright exists from the moment the work is created. You will have to register, however, if you wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. See Circular 1, Copyright Basics, section “Copyright Registration.”
You go on...
If someone is violating the GPL license and selling a modified version of his work, I'd recommend he contact the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who can help defend him, most likely free of charge.
While the EFF are a bunch of hoopy froods who protect our rights in cyberspace, they are certainly not the first people I'd contact about a GPL infringement. They're not even the 4th or 5th on my list.
Here's my list:
1) GPL-Violations.org - Volunteers, knowledgeable folks who will answer your questions pretty quickly
2) The SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) - Volunteer lawyers (much slower to respond due to demand, but they know their stuff)
3) The Software Freedom Conservancy (if you want to align your FOSS project with a "non-profit home and infrastructure for FLOSS projects.")
4) The Free Software Foundation, if you have a specific question about some of their GPLed software
5) Bradley Kuhn, Harald Welte, etc..
Have you even read the text of the GPL(v2) ?
No, you can not sell GPLed software you didn't write, though you may charge a distribution fee, and you must provide a way to access the source code you're distributing. If some a-hole is charging $50-ish bucks for your software, take him down.
Here's an exact quote from the on the FSF's website:
Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney)
Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)
When you mention a "distribution fee," I believe that you're talking about clause 3(b) of the source requirement of the GPLv2 (relevant section italicized):
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
Section 3(b) is talking about a requirement to provide source code to people you've already given binaries. You can still charge them a bunch of money up front for initial access to the program.
It's not always easy to understand parts of the GPL, and the GPLv3 made the whole darn thing a bunch
coding is life
Under just about all national law, actually - it's one of the terms of the Berne Convention. It requires all contracting companies make copyright grants automatic, even if the author didn't explicitly put a notice on.
There was a valid reason though. It was to prevent incomplete works from leaking and being legally redistributed, before the creator(s) put the copyright notice on.
Distribution fee, sale... just a matter of semantics. But yeah, you are right - RMS himself has said that he encourages people to sell GPLed software for whatever they think their customer can afford. IIRC, he used a hypothetical figure of $1B to illustrate his point. In other words, I could sell Emacs to somebody who didn't know that he could get it from gnu.org itself, for whatever I thought I could get away w/ charging him
The only thing about it is that while selling the software, they cannot restrict the future distribution of binaries w/ source to third parties. In other words, let's say this Drupal software was sold for $1000 to a customer, who decided to recoup his costs by selling it to 15 customers that he knows for $100. The guy who sold him that cannot stop him from such an act. The only thing that they can be prevented from doing is distributing the binaries w/o the source - that is what violates the letter & the spirit of the GPL.
The above statement that people are encouraged to sell GPL software is used by the FSF to try and demonstrate that they are not anti-business. While on the surface, that is true, the above example clearly proves that if the objective is to sell software, the GPL is a bad model to use, since it prevents downstream distributors from putting any distribution restrictions on their customers, thereby allowing such customers to become competitors and stealing what could be their marketshare. All that said however, there is nothing that the GPL does to discourage people from selling their software, as long as the requirement that source always accompanies binaries is adhered to. (Somewhat ironically, GPL does not require the converse - if you distribute just the source code of a program w/o compiling it, it still qualifies as free under the FSF definitions).