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Possible GPL Violation?
An Anonymous Coward wrote to inform us of a new Chinese Linux distro, Blue Point Linux 1.0RC, which includes support for Chinese characters. The bad news is the developers, who have based their effort on Red Hat's are alleged to have forgotten to include the modified kernel source. Coward asks: "Don't they violate the GPL?". Some people over at the BP Forum apparently have some thoughts. What do you think: is this against the terms of the GPL? (Can someone translate this?)
I'll admit I only took a glance, but not including src is by no means a violation of the GPL. I can release hundreds of programs w/o src, and do so rightfully under the GPL...the GPL simply states that src must be made available per request.
Now, if you ask for the mods and they say nay, THEN it's a violation.
Term #3 of the GPL would appear to agree with you.
Looks like 3.b offers an escape hatch.
-----------------------------------------
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
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,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
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Only the dead have seen the end of war.
wow.. take a minute to think for a second. The GPL doesn't require the code be with the product, but be available when requested, at a fee of whatever is needed to pay transportation costs (or free). That means if these guys simply put an ftp up with the modified code, and let you know its availalbe, they shouldn't have a problem. Here's my proof.. (I really hate /. always jumping the gun..). From v1 of the GPL (cuz I was just looking at it.. thanks RMS and neelakanth (is it neel?) for finding v1 for me)...
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a portion or derivative of it, under Paragraph 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above; or,
b) accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party free (except for a nominal charge for the cost of distribution) a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Paragraphs 1 and 2 above; or,
c) accompany it with the information you received as to where the corresponding source code may be obtained. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form alone.)
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
After you have gotten a copy of the binary software, you must see if there is source code for all GPL software, or if there is a clear written offer for the source code distributed along with the binary software (perhaps on the CD itself). If neither of these exist, the GPL is being violated.
Then, you should contact the manufacturer and ask for source code (for the kernel modifications, or whatever). Then if you don't get the source code, that's a GPL violation too.
Don't listen to anyone who calls it "whining" to protest a GPL violation. Remember that the Linux kernel and applications are copyrighted property of some thousands of contributors, and they have a right to enforce their license, which requires that source code be distributed upon request.
Under the GPL, if source code is not distributed with the product, the distributor of the binary code must give source code to anyone who requests it, not just people who have received the binary code. But we must see a copy of the binary product to determine conclusively whether or not source code is distributed.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Of course, I have not seen the product and will need to examine it along with someone who can read Chinese before I can say for sure that the GPL's being violated.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
ok, i browsed through the bp forum and only found
... no to mention that you have
... (ok, there's some rambling here and
- -
one thread relating to the GPL violation. here's
a rough translation: ( the words in parentheses
are added by myself )
title: i'm very dissapointed...
name: blue
the kernel source being close-source already
voilates the GPL. the chinesenization
technology is for "bp linux" only is also a
bad since a lot of people like mandrake,
openlinux, slackware, turbolinux, redhat,
debian
promised (opensource) before... ok i know
promises are not enforced by law, and doing
opensouce in china is very difficult, but i
believe the only way to continue the
development is to play by the opensource rules.
is making some rpm ( for other distributions )
really so hard? how about the CLE project in
taiwan? they are also very complete.
bp is really the most techanically suited
chinese solution right now, and i don't want
to see it being ruined by short-sightedness.
title: Re. i'm very dissapointed.
name: hahalee
yeah, look at CLE 0.9 -- already a few hundred
Megabytes. A lot need to be modified in a
distribution, like the hz de/coding in Pine,
debug in kmail and system scripts etc... we can't
depend on other distributors to maintain the
packages. anyway, if you like the distribution
like the preview version, feel free to continue
using it.
about opensource, what we promised was to include
source in the release version. this is just a
relatively stable debug version. the opensource
theory
i'm tired of translation ).
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so basically i think this is just like the Corel
Beta version thing. ghost already left a message
in bp forum informing the developers that they
have made slashdot headline from GPL violation.
i'm sure this will be resolved very soon.
Regarding copyright infringement lawsuits, given all of the money behind Linux these days, one would think that we would be able to find significant financial support for enforcing our copyrights, as we did in correcting the Linux trademark issue. There is also some chance that we can bring a criminal, not civil, prosecution in some forms of copyright piracy.
But the sad fact is that it may simply not be possible to enforce the GPL in some nations, China included. You certainly can enforce it, though, if the Chinese company decides to sell its product in another nation that has conventional copyright laws.
But we still haven't seen if the company is simply confused about the GPL.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Actually, if they give someone _inside_ of the company a beta or alpha or random coyrighted hack, as a binary, then that is distribution, and they'd have to give the person source under the GPL, or at least make it available. ;) ) ...a clear statement of what the program wants to grow to become. Given that, there can be direction and clarity. Without it, you might have a perfectly bugless program that was just a pile of unrelated functionality.
The trick is, in this situation it's probably being given to another programmer anyway- so it's _assumed_ that they're getting the source (to work on). But the point is an important one- there's no distinction between alpha, beta and final, and no distinction between inside the company and outside it, as far as GPL applying. When you give a person a binary you let them have source, that's the bottom line. It most certainly applies within a company as well. To control this, only give binaries and source to people who need it to work on, and who agree with you not to distribute it more widely yet. That has to be voluntary because the GPL specifically authorizes anyone to redistribute further on their whim, and doing so is also in the spirit of the license.
You can explain to your programmer that you want the program to be more finished and whole before the world sees it. Suggesting that the bugs should be fixed first is not a good idea, because that brings thoughts of 'many eyes/easy bugs' and is an argument for going widely public instantly. Instead, a better argument for voluntarily keeping a distribution limited at first is that in early stages, the 'essence' of the program is very blurry and weak. You want to have the program stand on its own and seem original and worthwhile, bugs or no bugs, by the time you're really putting it out there. Otherwise people might not understand what it wants to be, and the open source interaction might pull it in many unhelpful directions.
One might even say that a GPLed program doesn't need a buglist so much as a manifesto (ducks
Over at 3rd Pig they've got a RedHat kernel (from the 4.1 distro i believe) that's been hacked up to use process based security. They've been running a public test and haven't released the code even though they have been asked. I don't know if they give you the source when you purchase it, but at the price they charge (~$10k+) i don't think i'll find out.
I would think that if they modified a linux kernel, they would have to release the source. (Don't flame me as i haven't really read up on the liscences and i'm just expressing my opinion.)
My
O.K., I can deal with the concern about a Linux distribution not including source, even if it might be a bit premature.
What's with all this China-bashing, though? Sure, China's got its problems... but it's not like this is the first time someone's done this. To say it's happened because "the Chinese make their own rules" or "the Chinese don't believe in intellectual property" is speculation at best, and bigotry at worst.
They screwed up. Westerners have done the same thing, and I doubt anyone would argue that (as a possibly inaccurate example) the guys at Corel are godless commies because they didn't provide the source to their distribution.
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Consult, v. t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
That's funny, I keep my moderation filter at '1' and didn't see any anti-Chinese posts. Just goes to show that ./'s moderation system DOES work. :)
BTW, how can you tell that AC posts are from US citizens or even from a 'Western' country? Maybe it's a Taiwanese/Japanese/'Insert Eastern Country Here' person.
I also got the feeling that it was the same person posting most of the AC anti-Chinese remarks.
Sigh...
jf
http://ftp.openunix.org:81/pub/bluepoint/starprevi ew/FAQ.TXT section 3.10.3: (translated) chinese package and patch: "due to space limitation, no source code is included in this beta version, but we promise to include source code in the formal release, and you can find the source code on our homepage." Please don't be so critical of everything related to china before you get the facts.
IANAL, but... Let's just hope that no major corporations discover how flimsy a protection the GPL really is.
Legal and accurate though it might be, the GPL has a fatal shortcoming as a protectant of open source rights, namely that it costs money to enforce.
I'm sure many of you are familiar with the practice among American convicts of filing spurious lawsuits against the prison system in an attempt to wear it down. Inmates have filed civil rights claims against everything from the temperature of the bathwater to the flavor of peanut butter served in the cafeteria. These lawsuits are not serious, but they cannot be prevented because the right to sue has been tied by the courts to the rights of free speech. The upshot is that DA's offices are exhausted in some counties with the sheer expense of filing counterclaims and motions to dismiss.
If someone really wanted to demolish the open source protections on a product, all they would have to do is reverse this tactic. A lot of open source programmers and "foundations" just don't have the money to fight more than a handful of costly legal battles. All a company would have to do would be to publish and illegally patent hundreds of modules that broke the GPL on an open source product. Then build the product out of the patented "proprietary" modules. Challengers to the legality of this maneuver would have to prove one by one that the modules were not legal, costing them thousands of dollars. And if they suceed for some module, well, it's simple enough to produce a legitimately proprietary version for one small part. Pretty soon you exhaust the original open source devs and they give up. Viola!
What we need, as other have said, is some sort of fund to hire crack lawyers. Like the ACLU, except for open source.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!