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Intel's ME May Be Massively Infringing on Minix3's Free Software License (ipwatchdog.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the secret-software dept.

Software engineer (and IP Watchdog contributor) Fredrik Ohrstrom (a.k.a. Slashdot reader anjara) writes: Almost all Free Software licenses (BSD, MIT, GPL...) require some sort of legal notice (legal attribution) given to the recipient of the software, both when the software is distributed in source and in binary forms. The legal notice usually contains the copyright holder's name and the license text. This means that it's not possible to hide and keep secret the existence of Free Software that you have stuck into your product that you distribute. If you do so, then you are not complying with the Free Software license and you are committing a copyright infringement!

This is exactly what Intel seems to have done with the Intel ME. The Minix3 operating system license requires a legal notice, but so far it seems like Intel has not given the necessary legal notices. (Probably because they want to keep the inside of the ME secret.) Thus not only is Minix3 the most installed OS on our recent x86 CPUs -- but it might also the most pirated OS on our recent x86 CPUs!

8 of 251 comments (clear)

  1. Do you think they care? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They're a corporation.

    Lol.

    1. Re:Do you think they care? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Corporationsare people, too, my friend. Thieving, evil, soulless people.

    2. Re:Do you think they care? by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

      So jail them all? Not that I would be opposed...

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    3. Re:Do you think they care? by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ME is turning into a colossal dumpster fire.

      You have a point. This is really just another soiled mattress in the dumpster. With used hypos stuck in it.

      --
      Bruce Perens.
    4. Re:Do you think they care? by thsths · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, corporate employees are not usually evil. The secret of a commercial organisation is to diffuse responsibility, so that you can perform evil actions with non-evil employees. Everybody things they are doing the right thing, just following procedures etc, but the end result is often evil.

    5. Re: Do you think they care? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is copyright infringement on a massive scale that they've allegedly committed, not exactly something that a "Here's the notice I was required to show you." will fix.

      If giving notice is all that needs to be done, then I guess the MPAA should drop all of their lawsuits if the people that are allegedly sharing movies would just delete them. See how that just doesn't work?

    6. Re:Do you think they care? by OrangeTide · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If the copyright infringement is willful, the maximum penalty increases to $150,000 per violation.

      Why not use MPAA and RIAA tactics against Intel? They can pay $150k per CPU they shipped in the last several years. If the Minix copyright holders are feeling nice, they can accept a lesser settlement instead.

      That's how the law works.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
  2. copyright laws are just like other laws by cas2000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    copyright laws are for people to obey, not for corporations.

    copyright laws are for corporations to wield, not for people.