Violation of GPL and possible EULA...
on
Abusing the GPL?
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· Score: 1
Hmm... sounds like blatent criminal action to me..
- EULA violation of the student licensed developmental software, which, if the whole of the text of the EULA/license agreement is read, depending on the license in question, limits the works produced from the product to be usable for non-commercial uses only. This, of course, depends on the license of the commercial software in question.
The produced work, if so restricted legally, cannot be re-licensed under the GPL as that would be a license violation and under the GPL, is not GPL'able.
- GPL violation will occur in the event of code obfuscation since the code base which is being worked on is not the code in question. Producing un-maintainable source code which the coders/maintainers do not themselves use is a violation of the GPL requirements for inclusion into the GPL.
The fact that the company takes the work produced from the student/restricted license copy of the commercial software and modifies it to appear as if it was not produced from that tool is demonstration of criminal intent to violate a software license/commit fraud.
The fact that the company plans on incorporating GPL'd source code into their product and rendering the released source unmanigable also opens them up to legal attack by the FSF.
Personally, I would look for a 2nd/3rd legal opinion and consider the lawyer in question of dubious moral fiber and incompetant if he/she believes that doing such a thing will save the company money by defrauding and abusing:
- Educational versions of softwares which are made available in good faith for students to use. - The GPL which works to make source code open and available.
I would think that boycotting this company's products would be a good idea since from what the original poster has noted, what the company is doing amounts to nothing short of IP theft, license violations, and intent to defraud commercial companies who produced the software development platform/software and the GPL coders, upon which their product so heavily relies upon.
Doing a quick search, doesn't the concept of a HyperCard system with key words/phrases linking to other cards/pages predate the link patent in question?
Looking at the text of the Patent itself... for item #5, where they describe terminals as apparatuses for providing access via telephone lines. Doesn't that then negate the "terminals" which don't use telephone lines?
So my PC which uses EtherNet via wireless networking or via Cat-5 cabling which I wired myself is then not inclusive in the patent's description of a "Terminal" and can thus use hyper text linking without stepping on the patent in question.
Or line-of-sight from building to building IR/Laser data transmission which is not provided for or maintained by a Telco and so is not a "telephone line".
As the patent doesn't go into details of what they mean by "telephone line", I think that provides a pretty big hole in their coverage. I can see how it might cover dial-up users, but for other line/wireless/etc users, it becomes exceedingly grey/black.
I do find one interesting thing about the description of the invention in the Abstract:
"The invention is particularly useful in reducing the complexity of the operating protocol of the computer." (From Abstract of Patent #4,873,662 of te US Patents Office)
If anything, I would say that implementing the click-links/HTML/etc protocols has made the operating protocols of the computer even more complex, not any easier.
Pot-Shot-Summary:
What I got out of the patent text was that:
Any terminal/computer/etc connected not through telephony lines is exempt from the Patents.
Any terminal system which does not show the various charges and/or accumulation of charges is exempt from this patent as the patent covers systems which primarily deals with listing charges for services and the accumulation of them.
Guess another question would be: How would BT enforce this? The technology is so prevelant on the web that to remove it all, would not be financially sound to BT itself.
But then again, it doesn't seem like they really care about what people think about them or who they shove out of the way or trample on so long as they get their money.
Though I do wonder... some more text taken from the patents text:
"This is a continuation of application Ser. No. 814,922, filed 7/12/77, now abandoned." (US Patents Office excerpt from Patent #4,873,662)
What does it mean that this is a continuation application? And what does it mean when for the child patent when the parent patent has been abandoned?
Slashdot Mirror
Hmm... sounds like blatent criminal action to me..
- EULA violation of the student licensed developmental software, which, if the whole of the text of the EULA/license agreement is read, depending on the license in question, limits the works produced from the product to be usable for non-commercial uses only. This, of course, depends on the license of the commercial software in question.
The produced work, if so restricted legally, cannot be re-licensed under the GPL as that would be a license violation and under the GPL, is not GPL'able.
- GPL violation will occur in the event of code obfuscation since the code base which is being worked on is not the code in question. Producing un-maintainable source code which the coders/maintainers do not themselves use is a violation of the GPL requirements for inclusion into the GPL.
The fact that the company takes the work produced from the student/restricted license copy of the commercial software and modifies it to appear as if it was not produced from that tool is demonstration of criminal intent to violate a software license/commit fraud.
The fact that the company plans on incorporating GPL'd source code into their product and rendering the released source unmanigable also opens them up to legal attack by the FSF.
Personally, I would look for a 2nd/3rd legal opinion and consider the lawyer in question of dubious moral fiber and incompetant if he/she believes that doing such a thing will save the company money by defrauding and abusing:
- Educational versions of softwares which are made available in good faith for students to use.
- The GPL which works to make source code open and available.
I would think that boycotting this company's products would be a good idea since from what the original poster has noted, what the company is doing amounts to nothing short of IP theft, license violations, and intent to defraud commercial companies who produced the software development platform/software and the GPL coders, upon which their product so heavily relies upon.
Just a couple of cents. And IANAL.
Looking at the text of the Patent itself... for item #5, where they describe terminals as apparatuses for providing access via telephone lines. Doesn't that then negate the "terminals" which don't use telephone lines?
So my PC which uses EtherNet via wireless networking or via Cat-5 cabling which I wired myself is then not inclusive in the patent's description of a "Terminal" and can thus use hyper text linking without stepping on the patent in question.
Or line-of-sight from building to building IR/Laser data transmission which is not provided for or maintained by a Telco and so is not a "telephone line".
As the patent doesn't go into details of what they mean by "telephone line", I think that provides a pretty big hole in their coverage. I can see how it might cover dial-up users, but for other line/wireless/etc users, it becomes exceedingly grey/black.
I do find one interesting thing about the description of the invention in the Abstract:
If anything, I would say that implementing the click-links/HTML/etc protocols has made the operating protocols of the computer even more complex, not any easier.
Pot-Shot-Summary:
What I got out of the patent text was that:
Any terminal/computer/etc connected not through telephony lines is exempt from the Patents.
Any terminal system which does not show the various charges and/or accumulation of charges is exempt from this patent as the patent covers systems which primarily deals with listing charges for services and the accumulation of them.
Guess another question would be: How would BT enforce this? The technology is so prevelant on the web that to remove it all, would not be financially sound to BT itself.
But then again, it doesn't seem like they really care about what people think about them or who they shove out of the way or trample on so long as they get their money.
Though I do wonder... some more text taken from the patents text:
What does it mean that this is a continuation application? And what does it mean when for the child patent when the parent patent has been abandoned?
Hmm...