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Red Hat Developer Demands Competitor's Source Code
sfcrazy writes "A very serious argument erupted on the Linux kernel mailing list when Andy Grover, a Red Hat SCSI target engineer, requested that Nicholas A. Bellinger, the Linux SCSI target maintainer, provide proof of non-infringement of the GPL. Nick is developer at Rising Tide Systems, a Red Hat competitor, and a maker of advanced SCSI storage systems. Nick's company recently produced a groundbreaking technology involving advanced SCSI commands which will give Rising Tide Systems a lead in producing SCSI storage systems. Now, RTS is blocking Red Hat from getting access to that code as it's proprietary. What's uncertain is whether RTS' code is covered by GPL or not — if it is then Red Hat has all the rights to get access to it and it's a serious GPL violation."
Now, RTS is blocking Red Hat for getting access to that code as its proprietary.
What is this I don't even
That's what it seems like from the summary. If not can anyone explain why? I'm not about to read a kernel mailing list.
ok reading the list nick had this to say :
"
Accusing us of violating GPL is a serious legal claim.
In fact, we are not violating GPL. In short, this is because we wrote
the code you are referring to (the SCSI target core in our commercial
RTS OS product), we have exclusive copyright ownership of it, and this
code contains no GPL code from the community. GPL obligations only
apply downstream to licensees, and not to the author of the code. Those
who use the code under GPL are subject to its conditions; we are not.
As you know, we contributed the Linux SCSI target core, including the
relevant interfaces, to the Linux kernel. To be clear, we wrote that
code entirely ourselves, so we have the right to use it as we please.
The version we use in RTS OS is a different, proprietary version, which
we also wrote ourselves. However, the fact that we contributed a
version of the code to the Linux kernel does not require us to provide
our proprietary version to anyone.
If you want to understand better how dual licensing works, perhaps we
can talk off list. But we don’t really have a responsibility to respond
to untrue accusations, nor to explain GPL, nor discuss our proprietary
code.
We’re very disappointed that Red Hat would not be more professional in
its communications about licensing compliance matters, particularly to a
company like ours that has been a major contributor to Linux and
therefore also to Red Hat’s own products. So, while I invite you to
talk about this with us directly, I also advise you – respectfully – not
to make public accusations that are not true. That is harmful to our
reputation – and candidly, it doesn’t reflect well on you or your
company.
"
so basically if they developed the code and use a closed source OS that is not linux then redhat don't have a leg to stand on...
if they use a module inserted into linux then it will "taint" the OS then it gets shifty...
have fun
john
From the LKML
I've heard such statements before. They remind me of SCO and their lawyers back in the last decade, when they accused Linux of containing copyrighted source code.
Result: Not good. I hope it isn't the case for Red Hat.
The presence of the last 4 letters.
Seems like RTS customers are the ones who would have a right to demand the source to whatever GPLed software they bought or been given. And any of them could legally "leak" to Grover. Not sure how RTS currently has any obligations to Grover, though. Why would they?
Remember that GPL is about protecting users. As handy as it usually is for developers, that's incidental; it's not for developers.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Hi Alan and others,
I've been advising Rising Tide Systems (RTS) in this matter. Please let me reassure you that RTS is acting on advice of counsel.
RTS (and specifically Nicholas Bellinger) wrote the scsi target code and owns its copyright. We registered that copyright at the Library of Congress. RTS contributed a version of the scsi target to Linux for distribution under the GPL. On behalf of Marc Fleischmann, CEO of RTS, I can reassure you that RTS remains committed to the Linux project and will continue to contribute to it. We are pleased that RTS software is a part of the Linux distribution under the GPL.
RTS also has a commercial software business. It distributes versions of its scsi target code that support features and functions not officially in Linux (or at least, not yet). That commercial RTS business includes the licensing of those derivative works of its own code to its own customers. Nothing whatsoever in the GPL or in the policies of the Linux Foundation prohibits that.
I would also like to address some comments made on these lists by Andy Grover and Bradley Kuhn.
First, I hope that we can tone down the arguments about whether the use of Linux APIs and headers automatically turns a program into a derivative work
of Linux. I think that argument has been largely debunked in the U.S. in the recent decision in Oracle v. Google, and in Europe in SAS v. World
Programming. Does anyone here question whether the original work that RTS contributed to Linux (and that *is* under the GPL) is an original work of
authorship of RTS despite the fact that it links to other GPL code using headers and APIs?
Second, we are grateful for the efforts that Bradley Kuhn and others put in to enforce the GPL. As I said above, RTS owns and has registered the
copyright on its scsi target and will enforce it if necessary. So Brad, we may solicit your assistance if we find any third party who is distributing
an unauthorized non-GPL derivative work of the scsi target now in Linux. RTS, of course, retains the exclusive right to do so, but no third party can
do so without a license from RTS.
Best regards, /Larry
P.S. In accordance with my obligations as an attorney when communicating with a represented person, I am copying attorneys for Red Hat and Linux Foundation on this email. If anyone wishes to respond to me, please copy me directly since I am not subscribed to these lists.
Lawrence Rosen
The same issue can occur with commercial code too.
It's basically a risk for any non-completely-free licence, including explicitly non-paid-for ones.
You can be put in exactly the same position by being accused by a commercial vendor of using their code.
And the solution for the vendor is the same - sue for copyright infringement, and it'll come out if the code is infringing or not.
Are there companies out there leaving their copyrighted code on the net just trying to get you to fix it for them for free?
It's not exactly the same thing. Also note: This is code they contributed to Linux. They retain rights and can dual license.
With commercial code I sign an explicit non-compete, have no doubt who owns the code and (wait for it) get paid.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The version we use in RTS OS is a different, proprietary version, which we also wrote ourselves.
This is probably what Red Hat thinks needs to be proven.
Pure hypothetical in contradiction of RTS's statement follows. Entirely fictional. However, I'm betting this is what Red Hat is worried about.
RTS writes Linux SCSI core driver. Contributors improve it. RTS backports Linux SCSI core driver, including contributed improvements, to RTS OS and then closes it off as proprietary.
This scenario would be a GPL infringement. This is probably what Red Hat suspects. This is contrary to RTS' claim, which is: The RTS OS codebase is clean, and is not a derivative product of the GPLed Linux codebase (with other contributions).
But I agree... the burden is on Red Hat to prove it. Demanding a code audit of a proprietary software codebase just because you suspect non-compliant backporting doesn't sound like it would work. In the meanwhile, they've poisoned relationships with a major code contributor. I hope it was worth it.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
The comment would be purely theoretical problem.
Unless it can be seen in the binary, RTS will tell anyone involved: 'No, you cannot see our source. You've made a serious public accusation. Do you own your house? Any other assets? What was your net worth prior to today?'
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Presumably because Grover as the Red Hat SCSI target maintainer (or, more likely, Red Hat as his employer) contributed, under the GPL, code (patches, etc.) to the piece of Linux he accuses RTS of infringing, thus what Grover is doing is accusing RTS of infringing the copyright on his (or Red Hat's) code by not complying with the GPL with regard to that code.
The GPL, like all copyright licenses written or chosen by the licensor with a take-it-or-leave-it choice for the licensee is used by copyright owners to protect the interests of the copyright owner; its not a contract, so users don't even have the arguable enforcement rights they might have as intended third-party beneficiaries of a contract. Now, it may be that the FSF, as the original authors and users (as licensors) of the GPL had, as their interests in mind for it to protect, what they perceived to be the general public interest or the interests of end-users. But it would be a mistake to forget that its for copyright owners, first, last, and only.
WTF? I see this all the time. Just because is it your friend who breaks the law, doesn't mean you shouldn't turn him in. Yes, you sour the relationship, but turning a blind eye is only going to encourage him the break the law even more.
No, this is more like you see a brand new BMW in your friend's driveway and you call the cops because you're pretty sure he can't afford that, it must be stolen.
Ummm, no. Wasn't Microsoft, it was Quarterdeck (DESQview, DESQview/X).
Easier to resolve.
RTS issues single fingered fertility gesture. Suggests GPL advocates take it up with brick wall. Resolved.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Wasn't Amiga multitasking even before Windows? I mean for a comparable price. SGI Irix and other Unix machines of that time were not "Personal" computers if price is considered.
RTS could make Red Hat happy by running a Black Duck analysis on their proprietary code and sharing the result.
That would likely not be reliable, since the wrote the original and forked it into the kernel, and developed the original further into their own product. The analysis would certainly contain many false positives since the kernel source came from proprietary source.
Besides, its only the back-flow of contributed changes that would make the GPL apply to their original code, and perhaps not even that
would be sufficient. Does a contributed two line patch drag the entire original proprietary source into the GPL?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
UNIX preemptively multitasked in 1969. Kinda predates Amiga.
The earliest example of a protected memory model using separated memory paging I can think of is OS/2 (1987).
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
That would be correct if and only if the vendor is providing the source code along with the device. If they aren't, then GPL v2 section 3b applies:
Emphasis mine. It doesn't say just customers. It doesn't say just people who have the binaries. It says "any third party". That means any third party, no further restrictions or conditions. The GPL v3 would let you limit your obligation to provide source to only those who have the binaries, but the Linux kernel is under GPL v2 without the clause allowing use of later versions.
First off this is nothing like the Oracle case. That was a case about reimplementing APIs, and has nothing to do with linking against someone-else's code that provides APIs. Secondly, it is a stretch to say that the RTS SCSI target is just including APIs. It is using all sorts of internal kernel functions that go far beyond what most reasonable programmers would consider to be an API to the kernel. If you interpret things that liberally, then any proprietary modifications to a GPL application would be allowed by just bundling up the list of functions you happen to use and calling it an API.
weeeeell... +0.5 since it was a collaboration with IBM. :)
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
They use Linux, there is no proprietary OS. From their own description:
RTS OS is a single-node integrated storage operating system based on Linux and the standard Linux Unified Target, developed by RisingTide Systems (RTS), including support for iSCSI, Fibre Channel, FCoE, InfiniBand, SMB2 and NFS3/4.
http://www.linux-iscsi.org/wiki/RTS_OS
Yup, and if found innocent they'd countersue for defamation and slander. You can't just go around accusing people of committing a crime without proof.
Can you prove to me that you didn't beat your wife this morning? How about we find a third party and have them set up cameras and monitor you 24x7 at home for a few weeks just to be sure?
You can't go around accusing people without proof and expect them to jump through hoops to prove their innocence.
Actually the Perq workstation used paging back in 1978. Brian Rosen, the original designer, had a falling out with the folks at Xerox PARQ over paging vs. . And VM was originally used in mainframes in the 1960s. The same is true of preemptive multitasking, and a lot of other stuff - the real guts of OS. If software had been patentable back then, a lot of important stuff would have been kept proprietary for two decades and we'd still be using an abacus to do arithmetic. Which is why software patents, whether pragmatic or not, are ultimately unfair - stuff I did back in the late 1970s and early 1980s were a lot more interesting and difficult than one-click ordering and rounded corners. So for that reason alone, the change in 1986 to allow software patents was a violation of all that's good, right and holy. Imagine if Tim Berners-Lee had patented the World Wide Web? (which was inspired in large part by the NeXT computer's user environment and NeXTMail - much of which could also have been patented under present rules.)
The present situation is akin to the inventor of the internal combustion engine not being granted patents, but painting the side of the car blue being patentable. But I know, I rant off-topic.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
I and an employer put a ton of code out under GPL. We had an arrangement, like TrollTech and MySQL, that contributors could only get their contributions into our trunk if they gave us copyright. (Otherwise, the licencing terms clearly stated, they could strip off our licensing terms, fork, and put out a derivative strictly under GPL that we wouldn't touch.) This was plainly stated, contributors agreed to it, and most certainly, all of our code and that of our contributors has always been made available under GPL in addition to our ownership of the original copyright. It was even clearly stated on our wiki and in our source files how this works and that we might license the code commercially. One day, some dude comes along and contributes like a single line of code. Unless he was blind, he read the licensing and contribution terms. Then years later he "discovers" that that very same employer put out a commercial product based on this code that we had original copyright for. As if a company that developed a bunch of IP wasn't going to use it in their products? But he claims they're violating the GPL, makes a big stink about it, and then he brings up again a few more years later, and someone on one of the tech news sites picks it up, and it gets worse from there.
I'm a huge fan of the GPL, but I'm sick of these dipwads who can't distinguish between a version licensed under GPL and the original work that's derived from. Meanwhile, they brainwash a bunch of other losers into thinking we're doing something wrong, while the whole time, we've worked carefully to ensure that we've been 100% precise and explicit and open about our intentions and careful attention to the terms of the GPL. (And BTW, I'm married to a lawyer, so I have extra help being ultra-precise about the GPL and copyright law.) To those people, the GPL is a religion, and anything not under GPL is evil. Moreover, anything related to a GPL'd work MUST be a derivative of the GPL'd work (not the other way around), because no commercial company is ever capable of producing anything that good, and when they release works under GPL, they must have hidden motives.
In our case, the only reason we bothered to retain original copyright was because we were making open source HARDWARE and hoped to be able to fund development by commercially licensing our IP, which we did, which was the main reason we were able to build real hardware in the first place, which everyone knew we were going to have to do, which is why we added those licensing terms in the first place. Hardware is expensive to manufacture. Because of this (and plenty of other contributors and some donations), we were successful at producing 100% open source hardware.
Sometimes, I feel like some of these people actually know they're being idiots. They're trolling, and they're doing it in an intentional attempt to derail an open source project. Like they're bribed by Microsoft, there to stir up trouble for FOSS projects by making political waves. But someone will come along and point out that if you have to choose between malice and stupidity, stupidity is the more probable option.
Personally, my motivation is to make things that work and contribute to the global mindshare. It's not so much source code that I want to share. Source code is only one form of expression. It's KNOWLEDGE that I want to share. And I enjoy creating new knowledge. Now, we always have to consider the ethical consequences of what we do in science. We do science to improve the world, so if there's some way we might harm it instead, we have to find alternatives. But I'm tired of these jerks whose sole purpose in life seems to be to confuse people and make life all-around more difficult for everyone. This is just as bad as people who try to legislate creationism into the science class. (But you know what, they do this because they're jobless losers with too much time on their hands; the rest of us actually have useful work to do.)
This is probably what Red Hat thinks needs to be proven.
Then they would have it completely wrong.
"As you know, we contributed the Linux SCSI target core, including the relevant interfaces, to the Linux kernel. To be clear, we wrote that code entirely ourselves, so we have the right to use it as we please."
RedHat would, instead, need to disprove that. I honestly don't know the truth of it, offhand. But, if true, RedHat doesn't have a leg to stand on.
If I modify your GPL'd code, I need to release my changes. If I releasing my own code under the GPL, I can also release it however else (ie, closed and proprietary) I want, and you can't do a goddamned thing about it. You have no rights to my further improvements thereof, you have no rights to me continuing that codebase in the future, you simply have no rights beyond what I've granted you with the GPL version.
More to the point - The GPL doesn't change the ownership of a snippet of code. It only changes the terms under which others can use that code. The original author still retains the right to do whatever the hell he wants with his code.
But not on a PC, which was the criteria here, right? So, perhaps not.
I do, however, have a predates-Amiga candidate: OS/9 for 6809. From 1979. The Amiga was 1985.
OS/9 6809 was spectacular for its day. For a 1 mhz system to run a whole bunch of terminals (which could just as easily be other computers... I used SS50 systems with graphics cards and keyboards attached to a parallel port on the CPU card), each client with access to the OS/9 machine's various I/O and other facilities... and using almost no memory... just awesome. Had a really decent scheduler, too -- guaranteed even the lowest priority process would get at least a little time.
I oughta drag that sucker out and set it up and run it. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But there is no evidence that step three happened. It is mere speculation that it might have happened.
Besides, its only the back-flow of contributed changes that would make the GPL apply to their original code, and perhaps not even that
would be sufficient. Does a contributed two line patch drag the entire original proprietary source into the GPL?
Not quite - if the proprietary module links into the Linux subsystems, as seems extremely likely, then the whole module likely becomes a derivative work, the exact details become very important in that case. The nVidia drivers walk this line, which is why you don't see them integrated into with any Linux distro - doing so would tilt the balance towards the derivative work interpretation and is likely to elicit a cease-and-desist letter.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Emphasis mine. It doesn't say just customers. It doesn't say just people who have the binaries. It says "any third party". That means any third party, no further restrictions or conditions.
I think your interpretation is wrong. If company A makes a special binary for company B along with an offer for source code, then random company C can't come and demand the source code for company B's version. The FSF FAQ says:
(...) When users non-commercially redistribute the binaries they received from you, they must pass along a copy of this written offer. (...) The reason we require the offer to be valid for any third party is so that people who receive the binaries indirectly in that way can order the source code from you.
That is to say, if you have an offer they must honor it no matter who you are. If you don't have an offer, you get nothing. It's like a cashier's check, whoever holds it can cash it. But no check, no money.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
UNIX preemptively multitasked in 1969. Kinda predates Amiga.
The earliest example of a protected memory model using separated memory paging I can think of is OS/2 (1987).
If by "separated memory paging" you mean "paging in separate per-process address spaces", the earliest example I can think of is the Berkeley Timesharing System on the SDS 940 (1966 or so), followed by Multics (1969), TSS/360 (1967 or so), and TENEX (1968-1970 or so).
(Given that you mention UNIX in 1969, you're not restricting this to OSes running on IBM-compatible PCs.)
I think you got the who needs evidence switched. They didn't release any evidence it wasn't because they never accused anyone or anything. It's the onus on the accuser to prove the cause.
It's not guilt until proven innocent.
For interactive software? Everything.
For batch software? Nothing.
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From LKML thread in question. Some choice quotes:
"You ship Linux as part of RTS OS. Even if you had not asked for LIO to be included in mainline, this would still be true and would require you to publish your changes under the GPLv2."
(http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=135240979330272&w=2)
"Is your code an independent and separate work from the Linux kernel? Some tests might be: can it be used without the Linux kernel? Can it be used with alternative kernels? Even if the answer to these questions is YES (which it isn't) then that second quoted sentence would still put your code under the terms of the GPL, since RTS OS distributes its changes along with the Linux kernel."
(http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=135250402701805&w=2)
"RTS OS is based on a stock Linux enterprise kernel. This Linux kernel has naturally the ability to load either one of our standalone self-contained target module versions without any modifications."
(http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=135242690804322&w=2)
"To be clear, we wrote that code entirely ourselves, so we have the right to use it as we please. The version we use in RTS OS is a different, proprietary version, which we also wrote ourselves. "
(http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=135240512628253&w=2)
So, to sum it up: it looks like they distribute the Linux kernel, bundled with a bunch of dynamically loadable proprietary modules of their own authorship. They claim that said bundling does not produce a derived work, because the modules are not physically part of the kernel, and they can load into any Linux kernel, not just this particular one (i.e. they're written against an interface). This is exactly equivalent to claiming that it's okay to use a GPL'd library so long as you dynamically link to it, something that FSF has long claimed is a no-no. Similarly, kernel developers have also claimed that making a module dynamic rather than compiling it directly into the kernel does not change its status as a derived work. It is this claim which is being disputed here, and if it is successfully defended, then it makes GPL effectively identical to LGPL in practice.
Red Hat contributes heavily to Linux, but they use tons of code which have been written by people who haven't been paid by them & they make money off it. But they don't want Oracle to make money off code Red Hat wrote. So they make it difficult for Oracle. What if the millions of people who wrote free Linux code had made it difficult for Red Hat in the first place.