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How Far Should GPL Enforcement Go?
itwbennett writes "The debate over enforcement of the GPL flared up again this week when Red Hat kernel developer Matthew Garrett wrote in a blog post that Sony is looking to rewrite BusyBox to sidestep the GPL. Which is a perfectly legal undertaking. But it raises the question: 'Is there social pressure within the Linux kernel community to not undertake GPL compliance action?' writes blogger Brian Proffitt. 'This may not be nefarious: maybe people just would rather not bother with enforcing compliance. Better, they may argue, to just let the violation go and get on with developing better code.'"
By hanging
I think GPL enforcement sould go just as far as everyone else. It should go as far as copyright law allows and as far as the copyright lobby goes.
C|N>K
Slashdot on piracy: "Abolish all copyrights! Copying isn't theft! Everyone is entitled to everything!"
Slashdot on the GPL: "Gee whiz, the GPL copyright license protects this code. Down with leeching violators! Protect against GPL theft!"
I confess I only skimmed TFA -- this is Slashdot, after all.
But I'm not sure I understand the argument that is being made here. If Sony is really trying to "rewrite Busybox" -- which makes it sound like they're going to look at the Busybox code and write a new version that does the same thing in a different way -- then surely that's a derivative work of Busybox and it's a copyright violation.
If, on the other hand, Sony is planning to write a Busybox replacement from scratch -- what's wrong with that? Are companies not entitled to write code? How is that "violating licenses with impunity"?
If Sony is planning to do a clean-room re-engineering of Busybox -- what's wrong with that? Isn't that essentially what Linux kernel developers have done for all kinds of devices? Again, how is that "violating licenses with impunity"?
Sony wants to not use GPL-licensed code in its proprietary products. What could be more clear? Would you rather they used it without complying with the license?
Breakfast served all day!
corporate death penalty
The GPL only exists to fix the insanity that is copyrighted code. Better not code was copyrighted, sure. But since can can be copyrighted, better as much of it as possible is held in common trust, to be shared and used among those who are willing to set their improvements free.
You do not have to be pro-copyright, to be pro-enforcement of the tool that is battling the ills of copyrighted code. When we decide that math was a stupid thing to try to legally magic-wand into products anyway, there will be no GPL to enforce.
IAIFARSIJDPOOTV - I Am In Fact A Reality Star; I Just Don't Play One On TV
It seems to me as though this is less about BusyBox per se, and more about enabling companies to steal code from other GPL'd projects without having to worry about the threat of the BusyBox folks calling them out on their wrongdoing.
Forgive me if I can't think of any word other than "scum" at the moment.
I second this.
"Hi there. Nice GPL copyright-backed code you got there, that you're violating the license on. It would be a shame if you had to pay $375,000 per Copyrighted Work, aka each file in the 50,000 file package. The Choice Is Yours."
Come on guys, if they're going to abuse copyright law, abuse it back, preferably with a big gun case that sets precedent. "No, you don't get to "withdraw your case. You get to pay me X BILLION dollars! Or - your choice - you can go fix it in Congress so that copyright damages are back down to $20 per work, like it should be."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
BusyBox is just some standard UNIX utilities in one executable. BSD has all the necessary code. The BSD license doesn't require source redistribution. Putting together a BusyBox replacement shouldn't be a big deal.
short version: RTFA
long version: Most GPL copyright owners aren't aware, don't care, or don't have the time/legal training to enforce GPL violations of their code. The Busy Box guys actively enforce the GPL license on their code. If you violate the busy box GPL license, they will not re-license it to you unless you also stop violating the license on all the other GPL software that's being distributed. If they replace busy box, nobody will bother them about the other GPL violations.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Is that really considered a derivative work just because they can see the source?
Proving an allegation of copying requires proving two elements: first, that the alleged infringer had at one time had access to the older work; and second, that there is a level of similarity between the two. "Access" can be as simple as having heard a song on the radio a decade ago (Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music).
Compaq decided to make lack of access clear when it reverse-engineered the IBM PC BIOS using a "clean room" technique. This involved having one team turn copyrighted code into descriptions of its (unprotected) functionality and a second team turn the descriptions into code, with all communications between the two teams carefully monitored. I've been told it might not be quite necessary to go that far, but in the business world, you'd often rather spend money on engineers than trial lawyers. In such a case, it's best to draw up a plan for "being able to tell IBM to go to hell, and having the federal judge draw them a map for exactly how to go there", as sigwinch put it a decade ago. (Here's such a map.)
For several hundred years, and probably before then, there has been a struggle between individuals who strive for the possibility of social segregation and the perpetuation of (their) wealth, and individuals who strive for, effectively, a vision of communal merging of humankind. The former represented by a collection of mythologies related to social darwinism, self-sufficiency, republicanism, individual property rights and free will, and the latter represented by a collection of mythologies related to equality, communalism, various forms of group or shared property, determinism and removal of all mental barriers that distinguish between groups of people (either on a national/racial or international/global/humankind basis).
Ideologies relating to both of these have been pervasive through the world and there are untold millions who lean in either direction. It's no surprise that you find plenty of people who sympathise either way.
It's also no coincidence that the terminology chosen was specifically "CopyLeft", representing effectively and in principle shared and communal property, as an alternative to "CopyRight", effectively individual, withheld and segregated property.
Consider the fact that if all property, assets and reality was virtual, and we lived in a completely software-engineered world (a la The Matrix), a world governed by GPL v3 / lack of copyrights would be one where all property would be communal. This because the integration and interoperability of software would eventually force through a completely communal state, and because 'private' property could be raided and distributed at will.
GPL v2 is an intermediary step, where communal property is effectively a voluntary or accidental movement.
This is also why there won't ever be a GPL version beyond 3. 3 is the end point. 2 is a philosophical difference. But the goal was obviously always 3, because if you ever develop 3, then it's clear that you have been intending to do so from the very beginning.
This is also why GPL enforcement is a contentious issue. There is a perception effectively of power balance, where "power creates counterpower". The more the FSF seeks to take strong action against GPL v3 violators, the more people _who are not philosophically completely sold on the idea of communal property_ will form a counter-power and avoid GPL v3. GPL v3 has seen limited uptake, most likely for this reason, because people instinctively avoid what is effectively a viral project to communalise all digital architecture. To pursue the highest profile cases would effectively force a philosophical end game at a legal and political level, which they most likely don't see as productive at this point.
Sorry, but no. Treat the industry as you want to be treated.
Ya know, the golden rule is a nice lesson we learned in grade school, but in the real world, if you treat others as you'd like to be treated, you're either treating them like dirt, or you're treating them well, and they walk all over you. It would work if everyone wasn't a sociopath and actually did treat people how they wanted to be treated, but there are too many people willing to take advantage.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
The implication is clearly that we (as a community) shouldn't discourage people from using OSS code, or they'd start rewriting it to "get around" it.
That's the entire argument for the GPL. Basically, if some simple conditions aren't met, you don't get to take advantage of all the work that's been put into it. The idea being that you'd rather they not use your code at all if they're going to be dicks about it.
Sony, for reasons I don't quite understand but are entirely up to them, seems unhappy about putting the publicly-available-and-not-competitively-relevant source code on their website. More power to them, but the tradeoff is spending a bunch of time rewriting software that already exists and works fine. More power to them.
When I license my code under the GPL, I realize that the odds of its reuse are somewhat smaller. But that's fine, since I'd rather that somebody saving time by building off my work makes their source available (to me, and everybody else). If they don't want to do that, I don't want to save them the trouble of having to write it themselves.
The more interesting story here is that Sony's got it in its head that it'll be cheaper to rewrite Busybox than continue to have links to it. Not sure how they figured it.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Go take your medicine. You need it.
Once again, Slashdot links to a blog instead of the original source. The linked blog gets its evidence from a wiki page at http://www.elinux.org/Busybox_replacement_project
This page has a Q&A which clearly states that it is not a Sony project:
Q. Tim Bird, the proposer of this project, works for Sony. Is this a Sony project?
A. No. Although Tim is employed by Sony, he spends a portion of his employed time working on behalf of the embedded industry to improve Linux and encourage GPL compliance. As of February 2, 2012, Sony has not endorsed or agreed to support this project. This wiki page is for gathering information and project description information, to present to various companies to solicit support and resources for the project.
Q. Can Tim's creation of this proposal be used to infer anything about Sony's compliance record, future compliance intent, or other business practices?
A. Tim has only recently informed his management about this proposal, and Sony has not yet (as of 2/2/12) agreed to support it. So, "no, not really". Sony has a good compliance record, and has strong compliance policies in place. It has never been contacted by the SFC and has no expectation of being contacted by the SFC about any license violation of GPL software. Tim is doing this as part of his (paid for by Sony) role in the industry to address issues which inhibit the adoption of Linux in consumer electronics.
The argument that is being made in a nutshell:
Busybox copyright is enforced by the SFLC, which sues companies to get them to comply. When negotiating for compliance, they also request that the company in question comply with the GPL2 license on the Linux kernel. Now, for whatever stupid reasons, some companies don't want to release their kernel modifications for Android devices. So they think that by removing Busybox, the SFLC will no longer have a copyright claim that opens them to litigation which results in their releasing their kernel source. This reasoning is flawed, because there is another, much easier way to avoid Busybox litigation: put the source code on your web site. That's all it takes. They could keep their kernel sources, and just put up the Busybox source, and they would achieve the same thing.
The other argument being made by one developer is that enforcement action is pointless, because he hasn't seen any Busybox source opened up from this route that was worth anything. Others disagree, saying there was some useful code, and that it's not just about Busybox - the Busybox enforcement actions have also resulted in kernel drivers being opened up.
So, the "outrage" here is the allegation that Busybox is being rewritten so that companies can violate the copyright of the Linux kernel without being sued by the SFLC.
Proffitt is a financially motivated troll, raking up the mud to get page hits. Please stop posting his blog posts, they don't help improve our lives or our software.
thank you
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
What exactly does Sony legitimately rewriting busybox have to do with GPL enforcement?
Yeah, they're rewriting it to sidestep the GPL, but so what? That's their prerogative.
Correct, but the issue pointed out in the blog is not really with Busybox at all, it's that the SFC acts on behalf of the copyright owners of Busybox and can leverage violations of Busybox code to get companies to release kernel code that violates the GPL. If they aren't using Busybox then the SFC has no case against them because they aren't violating the license of code copyrighted by people represented by the SFC, so the blog post calls for kernel developers to contact the SFC for representation so violations can still be pursued.
Self defense by doing exactly what you criticize is moronic. It's the we need nukes because they have them mentality.
What's wrong with that mentality? MAD works and is, in fact, the only thing that does.
Thats an interesting point. If you follow the golden rule you will get hurt by someone who doesn't - and that person won't be hurt at all. On the other hand if you "treat other people as they treat you" at least there is some feedback, some encouragement to follow the rule as well.
Mon chien, il n'a pas du nez. Comment scent-il? TrÃs mauvais!
"In the land of the Golden Rule, the douchbag is king"
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
But the really nasty part of all of this is that Toybox's only purpose is to allow the GPL on the kernel to be infringed with impunity, because kernel developers currently aren't cooperating with SFC.
Does anyone want to sell their copyright on existing kernel code? I'd throw you a few bucks to contribute it to SFC.
Bruce Perens.
The golden rule CAN actually work, if you approach life with a tit for tat strategy (benevolent or otherwise). If you are nice until someone shits on you and are then a bastard in return, this is completely compatible with the golden rule a.k.a. "do as you would be done by". If you are nice to others and they are nice to you in return, it all works out. And if you are reasonable, then you would also understand that someone is going to attempt to shaft you if you shaft them first. However, as long as you are nice to someone using a tit for tat strategy then you will never see their vengeful side. So "employ a (benevolent) tit for tat strategy as you would hope others do towards you" is not only nice, it is a very practical way to approach life, consistent with a functioning society that will even self regulate in the absence of a justice system.
You do need to be guarded against those who would feign tit for tat for an extended period of time until they judge the time is ripe for a mortal blow.
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
It isn't stifling development. Vendors are happy to use it, they just don't like complying with the license terms. This is an attempt to do an end-run around the detection of the license violations.
"You can spend months trying to rewrite busybox"
Output from sloccount for busybox suggests its more like 50 months.
Busybox is highly optimized code, there has been a lot of rewriting to reduce space, without being an expert on how these estimates work, i suggest it underestimates the effort required to create.
Total Physical Source Lines of Code = 192,634
Development Effort Estimate, Person-Years (Person-Months) = 50.12 (601.42)
Schedule Estimate, Years = 2.37 (28.45)
Total Estimated Cost to Develop = $ 6,770,351
anyone who thinks 'only 2 lines can screw up someone elses's code' is a ridiculous thing, should go after Microsoft SCO, and leave GNU alone.
And yet your company would scream bloody murder if their IP was treated in the same way. Rather hypocritcal, no?
C|N>K
Sony is not doing this project the summary was wrong. From the FAQ on the project.
"Q. Tim Bird, the proposer of this project, works for Sony. Is this a Sony project?
A. No. Although Tim is employed by Sony, he spends a portion of his employed time working on behalf of the embedded industry to improve Linux and encourage GPL compliance. As of February 2, 2012, Sony has not endorsed or agreed to support this project. This wiki page is for gathering information and project description information, to present to various companies to solicit support and resources for the project."
It reason is that it seems that the authors of BusyBox are very willing to go after companies and sometimes ask for remedies outside the scope of compliance with the GPL. At least that is what they are claiming.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.