First of all forget about all the posturing about the DMCA being bad, so what, copyright is not bad, without it we would not have the GPL.
Now as yourself, if someone was robbing your house would not call the cops?
This guy is breaking the law and stealing from you, do something about it.
Contact a lawyer and get them to write you a letter to ebay requesting the guys address and name as stipulated under the DMCA.
Once that is done contact said laywer again and have them draft a letter to this guy stating that he is in violation of your license and copyright law and that he must remit to you any and all proceeds as damages earned by his illegal use of you intellectual property. This is important, damages help and if he is making money in violation of your copyright he is damaging you. You are entitled to everything he made off you and probably treble or other punitive damages.
If he ignores you file suit in your local court. He may not even be in your state, good, if he does not show you win by default. If he does show the law is on your side.
Do not let him get away with it. There is a good chance a couple letters from a lawyer will be all you need and unless he will settle. Unless he is really stupid this will not get much past the letters.
Remember you are in the right and he is at significant risk, not only monetary, but possible jail time. Use that, and the law.
Copyright violators are breaking the law. Fight for your rights or next time just public domain your work and stop wasting our time.
IANAL.
P.S. I support a repeal of any sections of law that stand in the way of security research, reverse engineering and innovation. However requiring a company like ebay give up a name in cases like this is not bad, it is good. How else will the small author or publisher protect themselves.
Well IANAL but I expect each one of the copyright holders for the code could individually seek damages for the infringement. Alternatively they could probably all work together on a single suit.
That is why the poster to lkml mentioned the sections since all the copyright holders of those sections are affected.
As to comments that have or are going to be made regarding the GPL getting its day in court, the reason that this has not happened already is not because the GPL is weak, but because it is strong.
Much murmuring...to the supposed effect that the absence of judicial enforcement, in US or other courts, somehow demonstrates that there is something wrong with the GPL, that its unusual policy goal is implemented in a technically indefensible way, or that the Free Software Foundation, which authors the license, is afraid of testing it in court. Precisely the reverse is true. We do not find ourselves taking the GPL to court because no one has yet been willing to risk contesting it with us there.
Eben Moglen
In fact he has written two papers on the specific issue of GPL enforcement.
My expectation is that this company will buckle as soon as their lawyers get a look at the GPL in detail and what their developers/management did. The fact that the company actually took steps to hide their infringement is also going to look very bad in court. They are only making it worse for themselves. They should do themselves a favour and work out an agreement with the kernel developers before they really get burned.
Of course it is the best solution to make a fully redundant identical network. After all how else is Cisco going to maximize the profits?
Here is a suggesting, why not contract some consultants who do not tie their paycheck to how much product they manage to convince you to buy from their employer.
There are potential solutions to all the issues claimed in your post, you just have not put enough effort into finding them.
As far as your work using windows, how often do you bring up Linux for solutions? Do you suggest linux for support systems, networking etc? When you are given a task do you look to the Open Source community for an answer first? The world ain't gonna change by itself. You want to work in linux? Make it happen, stop waiting around.
The fact is changing your OS is not like changing your underwear. You have to want to change, and be willing to work hard to make it happen.
I can say from personal experience though that making the change is well worth it, if only for the freedom that comes from the platform. The fact that I do not have to commit a felony to use enterprise level software is a big plus.
Changing for me still is not complete and games are something that has kept me in windows at least partially. I even use a MS optical mouse because frankly it has a design that fits my hand well. I will also mention that I use Linux at home and at work. In fact at home I have 7 linux computers to 1 windows workstation.
On those few occasions I require to edit MS documents I use my purchased copy of VMware 3.2 to run Win2K and office. Otherwise I spend 8-12 hours a day on Linux servers and workstations.
Admittedly I am using windows to post this, albeit in mozilla 1.1. However this is my Girlfriends computer, and gettting her over to Linux is my next project. This will also happen.
I understand why you might want to stay in windows. It is safe and comfortable. I meet people all thet time that cannot fathom moving to Linux. They only need to do the minimal amount of work and Bill will take care of the rest for them, or at least that is what he says, the fact it never really works out that way is an inconvenient fact they soon allow themselves to forget. Also if they have to steal software or misuse "evaluation" licenses that is ok too, after all everyone does it right?
I gonna tell you a secret, the grass is really greener on this side of the fence. Over here we get to use the coolest software in the world for free, and get to participate in one of the most amazing intellectual collaborations ever conceived by mankind. It gets even better though because at this party, everyone is invited.
I work as an IT consultant and have worked extensively on both proprietary and Open Source software solutions. I have found in most cases OSS beats proprietary on costs hands down.
I believe the original poster makes some incorrect assumptions.
1) It is simply not the case that you will get anywhere close to 10 years support from a vendor for a particular product.
Even enterprise level software vendors only support their software for a relatively short time span. Microsoft and Oracle are two examples of this. Neither of them support software for more than a few years and then expect that their customers upgrade to the latest version. Often at significant cost. Today 10 year lifespan for software is not realistic except for perhaps custom solutions. 5 years is even pushing it. This also assumes the company is still around. Vegas has better odds than that of a 10 year old IT product company making it.
After the 3 to 4 year typical window the customer will probably have tohandle all support issues themselves, or upgrade.
So while the poster assumes that costs will stay static for the commerical solution in fact they will go up over time. In addition the closed proprietary nature of the commercial solutions will often make migration that much more difficult and costly.
This speaks to one of the other major cost saving advantages to OSS, adherence to standards. Commerical software vendors will tend to make "proprietary" changes, or roll their own to lock in customers (AKA competitive advantage), or as a result of them just being too lazy to work with community.
2) Percentage of FTE and lack of additional costs to support commercial products. There seemed to be an idea that you can compare 1:1 the time to support the OSS solution to the money spent on commercial support. This is simply not realistic. You cannot assume that by paying vendor X $5000 dollars that you will not have any costs over an above this $5000 for supporting the system.
Someone at the customer still has to recognize the issue, call the vendor, wait on hold, submit their question, wait for an answer, apply the patch if one exists, or implement the work around. This all takes time which all costs money.
Not that the support process is that much different with OSS, except perhaps that the problems more often actually get fixed, rather than having to wait till service pack 12 that should address that problem, and allow you to discover the next one, which will be fixed in service pack 13. This happens all too often, and with products from major fortune 10 IT vendors with onsite support personnel. Comparable OS products simply do not have these issues for a variety of reasons too numerous to mention here.
3) I also question the 4 hours a week effort required to stay current with the OSS product. I manage multiple open source systems in addition to my consulting work and I expend less than 4 hours a month in supporting them. This includes adding new users, applying security patches, and fixes problems in the extremely rare case they occur.
Someone else posted that the advantage with open source is that you control your destiny. This is absolutely correct. You can install, support, change, upgrade and manage the system to your preference in a way that makes the most sense for your organization. Over the long run this will save you money as you can effectively plan you upgrade cycles around publicly available OSS information regarding new versions and features.
The original poster should perhaps modify their assumptions based on real world experience with OSS solutions and the actual support requirements. I think they would find that overall the costs are much less for many solutions.
A follow-up question might be a description of OSS successes and their ongoing support requirements.
Slashdot Mirror
First of all forget about all the posturing about the DMCA being bad, so what, copyright is not bad, without it we would not have the GPL.
Now as yourself, if someone was robbing your house would not call the cops?
This guy is breaking the law and stealing from you, do something about it.
Contact a lawyer and get them to write you a letter to ebay requesting the guys address and name as stipulated under the DMCA.
Once that is done contact said laywer again and have them draft a letter to this guy stating that he is in violation of your license and copyright law and that he must remit to you any and all proceeds as damages earned by his illegal use of you intellectual property. This is important, damages help and if he is making money in violation of your copyright he is damaging you. You are entitled to everything he made off you and probably treble or other punitive damages.
If he ignores you file suit in your local court. He may not even be in your state, good, if he does not show you win by default. If he does show the law is on your side.
Do not let him get away with it. There is a good chance a couple letters from a lawyer will be all you need and unless he will settle. Unless he is really stupid this will not get much past the letters.
Remember you are in the right and he is at significant risk, not only monetary, but possible jail time. Use that, and the law.
Copyright violators are breaking the law. Fight for your rights or next time just public domain your work and stop wasting our time.
IANAL.
P.S. I support a repeal of any sections of law that stand in the way of security research, reverse engineering and innovation. However requiring a company like ebay give up a name in cases like this is not bad, it is good. How else will the small author or publisher protect themselves.
Well IANAL but I expect each one of the copyright holders for the code could individually seek damages for the infringement. Alternatively they could probably all work together on a single suit.
2 .html 3 .html
That is why the poster to lkml mentioned the sections since all the copyright holders of those sections are affected.
As to comments that have or are going to be made regarding the GPL getting its day in court, the reason that this has not happened already is not because the GPL is weak, but because it is strong.
Much murmuring...to the supposed effect that the absence of judicial enforcement, in US or other courts, somehow demonstrates that there is something wrong with the GPL, that its unusual policy goal is implemented in a technically indefensible way, or that the Free Software Foundation, which authors the license, is afraid of testing it in court. Precisely the reverse is true. We do not find ourselves taking the GPL to court because no one has yet been willing to risk contesting it with us there.
Eben Moglen
In fact he has written two papers on the specific issue of GPL enforcement.
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-1
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/publications/lu-1
My expectation is that this company will buckle as soon as their lawyers get a look at the GPL in detail and what their developers/management did. The fact that the company actually took steps to hide their infringement is also going to look very bad in court. They are only making it worse for themselves. They should do themselves a favour and work out an agreement with the kernel developers before they really get burned.
Of course it is the best solution to make a fully redundant identical network. After all how else is Cisco going to maximize the profits?
Here is a suggesting, why not contract some consultants who do not tie their paycheck to how much product they manage to convince you to buy from their employer.
An independent consultant
There are potential solutions to all the issues claimed in your post, you just have not put enough effort into finding them.
As far as your work using windows, how often do you bring up Linux for solutions? Do you suggest linux for support systems, networking etc? When you are given a task do you look to the Open Source community for an answer first? The world ain't gonna change by itself. You want to work in linux? Make it happen, stop waiting around.
The fact is changing your OS is not like changing your underwear. You have to want to change, and be willing to work hard to make it happen.
I can say from personal experience though that making the change is well worth it, if only for the freedom that comes from the platform. The fact that I do not have to commit a felony to use enterprise level software is a big plus.
Changing for me still is not complete and games are something that has kept me in windows at least partially. I even use a MS optical mouse because frankly it has a design that fits my hand well. I will also mention that I use Linux at home and at work. In fact at home I have 7 linux computers to 1 windows workstation.
On those few occasions I require to edit MS documents I use my purchased copy of VMware 3.2 to run Win2K and office. Otherwise I spend 8-12 hours a day on Linux servers and workstations.
Admittedly I am using windows to post this, albeit in mozilla 1.1. However this is my Girlfriends computer, and gettting her over to Linux is my next project. This will also happen.
I understand why you might want to stay in windows. It is safe and comfortable. I meet people all thet time that cannot fathom moving to Linux. They only need to do the minimal amount of work and Bill will take care of the rest for them, or at least that is what he says, the fact it never really works out that way is an inconvenient fact they soon allow themselves to forget. Also if they have to steal software or misuse "evaluation" licenses that is ok too, after all everyone does it right?
I gonna tell you a secret, the grass is really greener on this side of the fence. Over here we get to use the coolest software in the world for free, and get to participate in one of the most amazing intellectual collaborations ever conceived by mankind. It gets even better though because at this party, everyone is invited.
Cheers,
I work as an IT consultant and have worked extensively on both proprietary and Open Source software solutions. I have found in most cases OSS beats proprietary on costs hands down.
I believe the original poster makes some incorrect assumptions.
1) It is simply not the case that you will get anywhere close to 10 years support from a vendor for a particular product.
Even enterprise level software vendors only support their software for a relatively short time span. Microsoft and Oracle are two examples of this. Neither of them support software for more than a few years and then expect that their customers upgrade to the latest version. Often at significant cost. Today 10 year lifespan for software is not realistic except for perhaps custom solutions. 5 years is even pushing it. This also assumes the company is still around. Vegas has better odds than that of a 10 year old IT product company making it.
After the 3 to 4 year typical window the customer will probably have tohandle all support issues themselves, or upgrade.
So while the poster assumes that costs will stay static for the commerical solution in fact they will go up over time. In addition the closed proprietary nature of the commercial solutions will often make migration that much more difficult and costly.
This speaks to one of the other major cost saving advantages to OSS, adherence to standards. Commerical software vendors will tend to make "proprietary" changes, or roll their own to lock in customers (AKA competitive advantage), or as a result of them just being too lazy to work with community.
2) Percentage of FTE and lack of additional costs to support commercial products. There seemed to be an idea that you can compare 1:1 the time to support the OSS solution to the money spent on commercial support. This is simply not realistic. You cannot assume that by paying vendor X $5000 dollars that you will not have any costs over an above this $5000 for supporting the system.
Someone at the customer still has to recognize the issue, call the vendor, wait on hold, submit their question, wait for an answer, apply the patch if one exists, or implement the work around. This all takes time which all costs money.
Not that the support process is that much different with OSS, except perhaps that the problems more often actually get fixed, rather than having to wait till service pack 12 that should address that problem, and allow you to discover the next one, which will be fixed in service pack 13. This happens all too often, and with products from major fortune 10 IT vendors with onsite support personnel. Comparable OS products simply do not have these issues for a variety of reasons too numerous to mention here.
3) I also question the 4 hours a week effort required to stay current with the OSS product. I manage multiple open source systems in addition to my consulting work and I expend less than 4 hours a month in supporting them. This includes adding new users, applying security patches, and fixes problems in the extremely rare case they occur.
Someone else posted that the advantage with open source is that you control your destiny. This is absolutely correct. You can install, support, change, upgrade and manage the system to your preference in a way that makes the most sense for your organization. Over the long run this will save you money as you can effectively plan you upgrade cycles around publicly available OSS information regarding new versions and features.
The original poster should perhaps modify their assumptions based on real world experience with OSS solutions and the actual support requirements. I think they would find that overall the costs are much less for many solutions.
A follow-up question might be a description of OSS successes and their ongoing support requirements.
DO NOT FOLLOW THIS
DO NOT FOLLOW THIS
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