SFLC Sues 14 Companies For BusyBox GPL Violations 309
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the fourteen-birds-with-one-stone dept.
from the fourteen-birds-with-one-stone dept.
eldavojohn writes "The Software Freedom Law Center has filed a lawsuit accusing fourteen companies, including Best Buy, Samsung and Westinghouse, of violating the GPL in nearly 20 separate products. This is similar to earlier BusyBox GPL suits. The commercial uses of BusyBox must be much more prolific than anyone could have imagined. Having dealt with hundreds of compliance problems and finding an average of one violation per day, the SFLC recommends one thing: be responsive to their requests (they try to settle things in private first) lest you find one of these (PDF) in your inbox."
Re:WDTV (Score:4, Informative)
Well, this was mentioned in page 8 of the PDF:
"Western Digital's WDBABF0000NBK WD TV HD Media Player;"
Re:WDTV (Score:3, Informative)
Here's the pdf:
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2009/busybox-complaint-2009-12-14.pdf [softwarefreedom.org]
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:5, Informative)
Seems like they were given enough chances to respond, it would've been the same with proprietary software.
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:3, Informative)
Without the litigation, you lose the purpose of the GPL, though.
We don't want people embracing open source if by "embrace" they mean "take this free code, create my own product, and sell it".
Re:Not such a great idea -RTFA (Score:1, Informative)
The SFLC always makes contact and in good faith requests a response, compliance with the licence terms or other remedy in a reasonable time period.
So actions like these encourage people to embrace open source in an entirely legal manner rather than corporate interests ripping off the open source community.
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:5, Informative)
Major correction. We do want people embracing open source if by "embrace" they mean "take this free code, create my own product, and sell it". If it happens to be free software as well, they just need to release the source code to their new product as well. If it's BSD or some other open source license, the conditions might be different (attribution in advertising, possibly). Very few open source licenses forbid the commercialization of code.
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:5, Informative)
We don't want people embracing open source if by "embrace" they mean "take this free code, create my own product, and sell it".
No, you're dead wrong. The GPL allows exactly what you're describing.
It attaches a condition to that, though: It also says, 'Anything you distribute has to be available in source form as well.'
It's bad enough that proprietary software apologists try constantly to conflate the terms 'proprietary' and 'commercial' without GPL supporters showing equal ignorance. Proprietary software has exactly nothing to do with whether it's commercial or not. GPL has exactly nothing to do with price.
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. The SFLC have consistently been proponents of working with violators in private whenever possible; see, for example:
http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/11/08/gpl-enforcement.html [ebb.org]
If they're resorting to a suit, it's likely only after making serious efforts to resolve the conflict some other way.
Got an e-mail from the SFLC this morning (Score:5, Informative)
A little over two years ago, I discovered that my VersaTek modem was using Linux/BusyBox. I requested the source, and the company refused saying that their Chinese OEM didn't give it to them, so that they couldn't give it to me. This is, of course, still a violation of the GPL in the same way that selling a stolen stereo doesn't change the fact that the stereo is stolen.
I mailed a report of this to the BusyBox author, and this morning the SFLC sent me an e-mail letting me know that VersaTek was being included in this lawsuit. They don't mention the specific VersaTek product that I notified them about, but it's nice that they followed up.
Re:But who gets paid? (Score:5, Informative)
a - b) The copyright holder or his/her appointed representative
c - d) The copyright holder or the organization which volunteers to file the lawsuit on the copyright holder's behalf
e) No -- the copyright holder is in charge of who gets sued
sorry, you've made an incorrect statement (Score:4, Informative)
While I like your sentiment, your statement is wrong. You can selectively enforce copyright all you want.
It's trademarks that lose strength if you don't enforce them.
To back up parent..... (Score:4, Informative)
Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my site?
Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide “equivalent access” to download the source—therefore, the fee to download source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.
It looks to me that I can charge $1,000,000 for my GPL software and charge another $1,000,000 for the source.
Re:To back up parent..... (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, it does look that way, but it's a one-shot deal.
Anyone who buys it has exactly the same rights as you do - including selling the binaries or source at half price.
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:5, Informative)
Its not that difficult to comply with the GPL.
I've been emailing Humax for the last year (since I bought one of their digital TV STB) to get hold of the code in accordance with the GPL and they've either sent me a manual for a different device, told me that they didn't need to provide the code as I was unable to update the firmware myself so its useless me having any source code.
They do provide some GPL code for a box they sell in Germany though - but not the UK one, and there is no mention of using GPL code in their manuals.
If you want to try and get anything GPL related out of Humax you can try emailing them
gnu@humaxdigital.com (who never reply)
support@humaxdigital.com (who say they don't need to provide the code and can't even C&P a name properly)
You must have forgotten laches (Score:4, Informative)
You can selectively enforce copyright all you want.
It's trademarks that lose strength if you don't enforce them.
Not exactly. Copyright and patent claims are still subject to laches [wikipedia.org], even if the penalty for delay is weaker than for a trademark claim.
Re:I can hear upper management screaming now (Score:3, Informative)
Busybox is used for setting up the ethernet interface most devices seem to have these days and to manage the internal filesystem most devices have for caching & downloadable content. Well thats what its for in the box I have. I wish they'd activated the HTTP server in Busybox aswell as then I could have some access to the content on the box from elsewhere on my home network.
Re:SFLC Sues 14 Companies for Copyright Violations (Score:5, Informative)
I think these mythical piracy supporters would be all for that. Many seem to be of the mind of "if you are going to make this copyright shit that gets in the way of real progress, then we will use your tool against you." There's nothing wrong with taking the tools of your enemy and using them against him. And so I think the mythical pirates you refer to would be happy to have the problem you describe, as long as it came with the 2 year cap to copyright you mentioned (or even abolition).
Re:To back up parent..... (Score:2, Informative)
Depending on the actual worth of the software and its demand, one of two things will happen:
If the total worth of your software (value to each user * total users in the market) is less than $2,000,000, then obviously no one will buy it and you will earn a total of $0.
If the total worth of your software is greater than $2,000,000, then someone will pay you $2,000,000 to obtain your binary and source and re-distribute both under GPL at a reasonable price. Your competitor will capture the entire market and you will only earn $2,000,000 (a small portion of the entire market in this case). Thus by pricing your software above the market price, you have essentially developed a product for your competitor to sell. They will earn most of the profits while undertaking no risk.
In both cases, charging $1,000,000 for your software is not economically optimal.
In other words, the price of a GPL software is completely determined by the market, since anyone with money can buy you out and re-distribute at the market price. In contrast, the price of proprietary software is less constrained by the market, which explains the fact that almost all commercial software is proprietary.
In reality, however, it's impossible to have commercial GPL software since regardless of the price you charge, [insert evil software company here] could buy it and then maliciously re-distribute it for free, thus completely killing off your revenue stream. Thus GPL implies both libre and gratis in the real world.
Use doesn't require meeting conditions. (Score:3, Informative)
That depends on what you mean by "use". Typically people mean executing a program, running the software. The terms of the GPLv2 (Busybox's license) do not compel one to do anything upon running the software. And this quality is not unique to the GPL.
Re:I finally understand!!! (Score:3, Informative)
It's been said here 10 times, but I'll say it again.
The FSF/SFLC GPL (ok, that's a load of acronyms) enforcement efforts are not about money; they're about compliance. These people try hard to create a peaceful solution for GPL violations, and only resort to lawsuits when it's clear that they're not intent on cooperating.
Re:I finally understand!!! (Score:1, Informative)
Except that:
3) Pay lawyers
Re:I finally understand!!! (Score:2, Informative)
Well, if the company had followed the rules, then either a) the company would have paid the author some money for a closed-license version of the source so they could incorporate it into their product without releasing the source, or b) the company would have had to release their changes, which could then be merged back into the project (not directly money, but programmer time is a resource with non-zero value). Or c) the company made no changes to the GPLed code but wouldn't redistribute the source even after they were warned because they're a bunch of idiots, in which case this represents the idiot tax.
I don't see what's so hard to understand.
Re:But who gets paid? (Score:3, Informative)
a) Any author of part of the software gets to sue (unless they had to assign copyright to the project*). In short, whoever owns the rights to the work! It's just copyright. The SFLC often gets asked to help by the people who's work has been stolen. I do not believe the poster above me who says that anyone can claim to own it.
b) In the past, the end result has been future compliance, and various "undisclosed contributions" to projects (no idea how you keep the amount of a donation to an open-source project a secret).
c) I Don't think the good guys have lost yet, but I guess SFLC would be out the (donated, I think) money it funds the lawsuits with.
d) SFLC funds the lawsuit (that's part of its purpose); they have a fund including $4 million from OSDL.
e) Trolls would have to get code accepted into the project to have a case, and then wait a bit and hope the violators upgrade to the latest version. That, or contribute to lots of projects in the hope someone infringes one of them (I'm not sure the community would mind). I doubt the SFLC would help a random small contributor, and as mentioned above, past SFLC lawsuits have resulted in contributions to the project involved, not payoffs of individuals.
*Having individual contributors keep the copyright is a great safeguard against a project leader taking a project closed-source. It is, however, also why Linux can't switch to GPLv3 even if it wants to.
Re:Really - who owns the copyright? (Score:3, Informative)
It appears Erik Andersen is responsible for a large amount of rewritten core apps in BusyBox:
http://git.busybox.net/busybox/tree/AUTHORS [busybox.net]
Re:But... (Score:3, Informative)
In reality, most of the GPL code copyright owners are more than happy to drop the claims if you comply by releasing the changes.
No, proprietary software is anti-progress, because unlike free software it locks the people who bought the software out. People who license their code with GPL are simply saying "I don't want the software I wrote helping people getting locked out", while PD/BSD/MIT/etc are more than happy to contribute to it.
Re:Got an e-mail from the SFLC this morning (Score:2, Informative)
Re:But who gets paid? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)
People can release code under any conditions they like, and I'm all for it. What I don't particularly like is false claims; and the claim that GPL code is "free" is one of those. It's no more free than commercial code is (and in fact, takes on much of the same character... do something we don't like and we'll sue you.) Because of the legal ramifications, it has real monetary cost as well; you think you're saving time, while your lawyer is planning on you paying for their new car. Or house. That's why I don't use GPL'd code, and why I don't use the GPL on my code. It's the same as commercial code - a legal minefield, and as such, totally not worth my time.
Forgive me, but I'm just not seeing the issue here.
The GPL boils down to the following:
If you don't want to follow these rules, don't use pre-existing GPL code as the basis for your product. Problem solved. Or, if you want to see if the author (or authors) is/are willing to re-license it under a different license for your project, you can do that too. And yes, there are additional details regarding patents and such, but the above is the gist of the license. Those additional details are intended to ensure that any downstream recipients won't be encumbered by other legal restrictions that may prevent them from exercising the rights they receive with the source code.
For all the complaining about the restrictions placed on them by the GPL, the above seems pretty simple to me. What am I missing? I must be missing something for all the complaints I read.
Emprex too (Score:3, Informative)
I got one of their ME1 multimedia enclosures. It's great, and uses Busybox. I can't find the source code anywhere on their web site.
http://www.emprex.com/03_support_02.php?pg_no=10&group=84&kind=1 [emprex.com]
Re:How do I comply? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Got an e-mail from the SFLC this morning (Score:3, Informative)
Let's read the license [gnu.org], shall we?
M'kay? If you distribute the objects commercially, then it's your responsibility to distribute or provide the source that you used.
Re:Not such a great idea (Score:3, Informative)
> Just look at the lack of a stable driver ABI that makes shopping for Linux compatible devices in 2009 a case of paperweight roulette for example.
Utter nonsense.
Linux has better driver support than MacOS for most things and it has a smaller marketshare. Most drivers are supported by the community and the requirement for a binary ABI simply doesn't exist. The few hardware vendors that directly support Linux are not visibly hampered by this "binary ABI problem".
It's just something for Lemming Trolls to whine about.
The fact that Linux has lower published marketshare numbers than MacOS is far more of a problem in this regard than this ABI nonsense.