DrDOS Inc Breaking GPL

Bob Dobbs writes "DR-DOS 8.1 (DrDOS Inc) came out at the begining of this month, however instead of an upgrade to DR-DOS 8.0 the new product is based on work available on the internet. The work includes shareware utilities, a badly patched version of the kernel work by Udo Kuhnt, drivers (Samsung, ESS) and utilities from FreeDOS and others (e.g. pkzip). Full information on the FreeDOS site. (Cheers FreeDOS!)"

bah, here we go again

[psycho8me]

You cannot "break" the gpl. It is a license, not a contract. If you do not agree to it or violate it's terms, you have no license to use the software or make derivative works. If that occurs it is simple copyright infringement.

Re:People use DOS?

[afidel]

I use it regularly for turning old PC's into Citrix clients. When a donated 486 can be turned into a functioning PC for free there's a lot of value in that. I would love a version of DOS with a built in TCP/IP stack and a LANMAN client, it would save me a lot of work having to do all the voodoo magic that it takes to get that stuff working under plain old MSDOS or its clones.

Re:bah, here we go again

[schon]

you have no license to use the software or make derivative works

s/ or / to /g

From the GPLv2, section 0:

"Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope."

Re:Hmmm....

[kpharmer]

> And wasn't DR DOS originally owned by Caldera...?
> Which turned into...SCO!

No, DR DOS was originally owned by Digital Research. These were the guys that IBM originally was going to buy their dos from, but their CEO at the time blew off IBM and went sailing instead(!). He was fired soon thereafter.

Anyhow, DR DOS 5 was a fine product - *far* better than MS or PC DOS. It was a completely compatible replacement to DR DOS that worked great with windows. If I remember correctly, it also included a very cool disk cache and set of memory management utilities. Anyhow, in reaction to its reviews & success, Microsoft:
    - upgraded its MS DOS from 4.1 (a horrible product) to 5 (a reasonable one)
    - dropped price for MS DOS from over $100 to something like $19
    - generated fake compatibility error messages that DR DOS users would get when using Microsoft applications
    - etc, etc, etc

Microsoft never did release a dos as good as DR DOS - with its conditional config.sys lines, online command help, etc, etc. But it did kill the product through illegal competition. Eventually, Caldera bought it out - just for the opportunity to sue microsoft over it. And won.

Re:People use DOS?

[avdp]

Award Bios has a windows-based fully-graphical utility to upgrade its BIOS. you don't boot into it or anything, it just runs in Windows. Not sure how they do it, but there is no DOS involved. The new BIOS is just there after you reboot.

Re:mod me redundant but...

[avdp]

Actually, the GPL does allow you to charge a fee to package and ship the source code. There is no requirement that it has to be freely available from a FTP site.

The site says "email for price quote". Have you asked what the price is? I don't know what the magical number is. $8 would be reasonable, $1000 would not.

Re:People use DOS?

[ankarbass]

It's used for embedded applications. Yes, I know linux is also. For some applications, however, all you need or want is a dos compatible file system and an easy way to input and output text information or simple vga graphics. With an embeddable DOS, and an old copy of TurboC (or Quickbasic, believe it or not), a few hours spent rewriting the startup code, just about any old-school engineer can be up and running. The code is understandable by one person AND you can buy licenses for cheap. Yes there's no charge for GPL'd code, but, it comes with strings attached which often seem like a poor risk compared to the oem cost of something like DRDos.

THE GPL IS NOT AN EULA!

[mrchaotica]

EULAs restrict USE, and therefore violate the Doctrine of First Sale. The GPL only applies to DISTRIBUTION, and only removes some of the restrictions of copyright law.

GPL is not an EULA

[metamatic]

Because the GPL isn't an EULA, troll-boy.

You can download and use GPL software without agreeing to any part of the GPL whatsoever.

The only time the GPL applies is if you wish to negotiate extra rights beyond those to download and use the software--specifically, the right to copy and re-distribute it yourself. In which case, the GPL is merely one possible set of terms for such redistribution; often the copyright owner has other terms available too.

The GPL is basically a convenience document saying "Hey, by the way, if you want to copy and distribute this, I'll tell you in advance that you're allowed to do so under these terms. No need to contact me and ask. If you want other terms, go ahead and ask. If you don't want to copy and distribute, ignore all this."

Re:eula and gpl

[ettlz]

Why is that the open source fan boys bash EULA, claim it is not enforceable - yet tout the GPL and whine whenever a violation is perceived?

Let me try to answer this. Other people may do a better job. The GPL and most commercial EULAs are not the same type of animal. EULAs seek to restrict the user's freedoms. "Open source fan boys" tend to object to the EULAs because of this, and even more so because many EULAs attempt to impose restrictions outside the immediate scope of the software to which they are attached (e.g., mandating spyware, no benchmarking, etc., there was a story here earlier). The GPL, on the other hand, places no restrictions on use: you can do whatever you damn well like to the software so long as you keep it free. This, I believe, is the crux. "Open source fan boys" don't like people taking GPL'd code, locking it up where others can't get to it, and worse still (in some cases) claiming ownership of it.

There is no hypocrisy in asking that the GPL (which in my opinion is very reasonable, and anyone who thinks otherwise is probably trying to build a baby mulching machine) be respected whilst denouncing these jackbooted EULAs.

Re:DrDos Source Code

[ari_j]

The actual language from the site you linked to is "Email [e-mail] for price quote." A price quote is not distribution.

Re:Hmmm....

[petermgreen]

hmm you do have some level of conditionals in config.sys in ms-dos (you can create a menu that choses a section and then that section can use an include command to run other sections).

Re:This is bad?

[JediTrainer]

He's asking them to distribute a copy of the GNU General Public License with the software

This is one of three things that they can do to be compliant. There are two others, which given their commercial nature they may decide to undertake:

1 - stop distribution, remove all GPL code from their application immediately and rewrite those parts before distributing again

2 - negotiate an alternative (commercial?) license with the copyright holders of the GPL portions of code. This can be problematic when there's a lot of authors, but it can be done.

Generally if a company effed up in (mis)using GPL code they should be given the opportunity to fix their mistakes. If this is an intentional misuse and they do not intend to correct things they may open themselves up to a lawsuit.

Any way you slice it, of course, the GPL software is still copyrighted. Without the GPL it doesn't become public domain. Eliminating the GPL means that you don't have *any* permission to use the code.

Re:This is bad?

[m50d]

So Dr. Dos are not even depriving the original author of any potential income, they are just.... well, what exactly? Freeloading on his work? I thought that what the Creative Commons idea was all about...

They're depriving their customers of the ability to see their changed code and improve and learn from it, and share it with their friends. The GPL's a bit unusual in that the payment the author asks for in return for being allowed to redistribute his work goes not to the author himself but to the people the work is redistributed to, but you could see it as similar to the case where an author declares that the royalties from their book should go to a charity.

Re:Hmmm....

[throwaway18]

No, DR DOS was originally owned by Digital Research. These were the guys that IBM originally was going to buy their dos from, but their CEO at the time blew off IBM and went sailing instead(!). He was fired soon thereafter.

That was Gary Kildall [wikipedia.org].
If you are going to repeat a computer industry myth at least get it right.
He was out flying his aeroplane not sailing and he wasn't fired, he later sold the company to Novell for 120 million.

Re:It's too damned early here

[nmos]

SOooooooo, what I wonder is this: if the Original IP belonged to Caldera (and now, through aquisition, DR-DOS inc) aren't they free to do with it -and with derived products as
they see fit?

Not necessarily. Despite popular understanding/opinion, if you create a copyrighted work and someone else creates a derivitive based on it you do NOT automatically get the copyright on that derivitive work. Each of you still owns their own contributions and neither of you can do anything with the derivitive without some sort of an agreement with the other party. If the derivitive was done without a proper license (doesn't seem to be the case here) then the simple creation of the derivitive would be a copyright violation and I'd expect that would give you enough leverage to convince them to hand over copyright on their contribution or at license it in a very reasonable way.

Re:Illegal vs. Against the terms of the license

[slavemowgli]

Of course violating a license is illegal. What it's not is a criminal offense; "illegal", though, simply means that it's not allowed under current law.

Re:It's too damned early here

[randomErr]

I believe that DR-DOS inc is at least required to formaly name the author of the revised software somewhere because of the GPL. Tonly other thing DR-DOS inc is required to do is provide the source code of the modified modules upon request by a licensed owner of thier produuct.

But they're different companies now!

[John Harrison]

I mean, by looking at the addresses DrDSO is at least two doors down from SCO...

DRDOS
379 South 520 West
Lindon, UT 84042

The SCO Group Corporate Headquarters
355 South 520 West
Suite 100
Lindon, UT 84042-1911

Re:It's too damned early here

[RLiegh]

Device Logics/DR DOS is distributing kernel code written by someone else (Udo Kuunt) based on the original Open Dos source code. I am not sure what the legalese behind the original release of the OpenDOS kernel source code is, and I am not having much luck finding a copy of the license online; but for anyone whose interested, here's a timeline of recent DR DOS/Enhanced Dr DOS [tuwien.ac.at] history to refer to.

Unless I read TFA wrong, the only way that FreeDOS enters into the picture is that two of the GNU programs distributed by their project is included (without source code availability) with "DR DOS 8.1". But the contention regarding the kernel code centers around what was released by Caldera and what license it was released under as well.

Re:mod me redundant but...

[slavemowgli]

Two things... first of all, it's perfectly legal to sell the source code to GPL'ed software, just like it's legal to sell the software itself (which actually may be distributed in source code form). What you can't do is charge someone *extra* for the source code who *already* got the software from you.

In particular, this also means that you (or me, or anyone) is not automatically entitled to receiving the source code; if the source code or a written offer to send it, as well as the text of the GPL license, accompanies the product, that's enough to be in compliance with the GPL. You do not have to make the source code available to random third parties who did not receive the product from you.

Of course, once someone has the source code, they are free to put it up on their own web page for all the world to download, for example. But if noone does that, then you cannot go to the company who sells the product and demand the source code unless you have bought the product yourself.

HTH. And JBTW, IANAL, of course.

Re:This is bad?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

" Except that they didn't change the code so they don't have to distribute anything."

Wrong. They distributed a binary, so they have to make source code available to any third party that asks for it. This is covered under 3.b:

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.)

The OpenDOS license also doesn't seem to be GPL.

[argent]

ftp://ftp.fsn.hu/pub/OpenDOS/OpenDOS.701/license.t xt [ftp.fsn.hu]

PART IV -- TERMS APPLICABLE TO SOURCE CODE GRANT
 
GRANT. Caldera grants you a non-exclusive license to use the Software
in source code form free of charge for personal, non-commercial use.
The Software in source code form may also be used for commercial
development purposes, provided a license is obtained from Caldera
before any products or derivative works are shipped for commercial gain
that utilize the Software , its components or derivative works.
 
For the source code license grant, you may:
* use the Software on any single computer;
* use the Software on a network, provided that each person accessing
  the Software through the network agrees to the terms and conditions
  of this license
* use the Software on as many computers as needed provided that each
  person accessing the Software agrees to the terms and conditions of
  this license;
* redistribute the Software for non-commerical purposes, provided any
  copy must contain all of the original Software's proprietary
  notices, marks and license terms. (Note: redistibution of derivative
  products for commercial gain is permitted, provided a license is
  obtained before the derivative products are exchanged for commercial
  gain)
* copy the Software for archival purposes, provided any copy must
  contain all of the original Software's proprietary notices, marks and
  license terms.
* modify, translate, compile, disassemble, or create derivative works
  based on the Software provided that such modifications are for
  non-commercial use and that such modifications are provided back to
  Caldera except for those who have obtained the right from Caldera in
  writing to retain such modifications; any modification, translation,
  compilation, disassembly or derivative work used for commercial gain
  requires a seperate license from Caldera;
 
You may not:
 
* permit other individuals to use the Software except under the terms
  listed above;
* copy the Software other than as specified above;
* rent, lease, grant a security interest in, or otherwise transfer
  rights to the Software; or
* remove any proprietary notices , licenses or labels on the Software.

Re:Jumping the Gun

[SEE]

If they're selling binaries but attempting to charge specifically for provision of the source, it's one of those edge cases not specifically covered in the GPL's terms.

Actually, it is dealt with. If they're not bundling the source code with the binaries they distribute, they must:

"Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than [their] 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" -- GPL 2.0, Section 3.

So they're perfectly allowed to charge separately for the source code, but only if they offer it to anyone interested at cost.

SCO and GPL validity

[phliar]

to their defense SCO has said they think the GPL is invalid

In that case, it's plain ol' copyright law that applies, and SCO are guilty of copyright infringement -- the Linux kernel code is copyrighted. You can think of the GPL as opening a hole in the shield of copyright -- no GPL, no hole.

Re:How is this illegal?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

They are trying to charge $45 for what would otherwise be free. But why would this be illegal? If they have not modified any of the software, how would this even violate the licenses?

You're confusing "free as in beer" with "free as in freedom." The online utilities they are copying and trying to sell are "free as in freedom" and they cost only a small service, that is if you redistribute them you have to include the original copyright info, license, and offer to provide a copy of the source. That is the "price" of GPL software. If you don't pay that price you have no right to copy the software for any purpose. It is just the same as any other license, whether I require you to pay me $5, sing me a song, or massage my feet in exchange for the right to copy something I own the copyright to. If you don't pay the price you don't get to copy the software. They copied the the software and are selling those copies, which is all fine, but they have to pay the price or what they are doing is nothing more than commercial copyright infringement.

Re:This is bad?

[Drachemorder]

"Eliminating the GPL means that you don't have *any* permission to use the code."

Actually, it means you don't have any permission to distribute the code. You don't have to agree to the GPL in order to use GPL code, only if you intend to distribute it (or modifications to it) to others.

Re:But they're different companies now!

[John Harrison]

Pretty much all cities in Utah do. The entire county of Salt Lake is on the same system, so nobody here has ever seen or used a street map of the city. You just write down the address and drive there. I just bought a new house thirty miles from my parents and simply told them the address, no instructions and they drove right to it. Contrast this to say, Boston, where everybody has a detailed map of everything in their car.

Re:His name!

[mobby_6kl]

You have to come early or browse at -1 to see these: 1 [slashdot.org], 2 [slashdot.org].

Re:But they're different companies now!

[UnixRevolution]

Not just next door...According to google earth, the distance is 36 feet between the 2 addresses.

Re:People use DOS?

[innocent_white_lamb]

I wrote and maintain a DOS application for a publishing company. A few years back they asked me to write a small database that would work on their Windows machine. Since I had (and have) no Windows development tools, I decided to install DOSEMU on one of my Linux computers and use a DOS-based compiler that I still had laying around in my computer junk pile to write their little program.
 
That publishing company has grown and now has a multi-user LTSP system running, and my little DOS program has grown bit by bit and become a multi-thousand line thing that does everything from classified ads to preparation of plates for their offset presses.
 
It runs fine under DOSEMU and (currently) Fedora Core 4, on their machines and on mine.

Re:But they're different companies now!

[buraianto]

Except you can't drive on the hypotenuse, but only on the grid lines. So you don't even need the Pythagorean theorem.

Re:eula and gpl

[dwandy]

close. while I agree it's never gone to court to set a legal precedence, it has been 'tried':

Eben Moglen has apparently offered [gnu.org] many people/orgs the opportunity to try it in court:

... you have to be prepared to meet a call that I make reasonably often ...
"Mr. Potential Defendant, you are distributing my client's copyrighted work without permission. Please stop. And if you want to continue to distribute it, we'll help you to get back your distribution rights, which have terminated by your infringement, but you are going to have to do it the right way."
At the moment that I make that call, the potential defendant's lawyer now has a choice. He can cooperate with us, or he can fight with us. And if he goes to court and fights with us, he will have a second choice before him. We will say to the judge, "Judge, Mr. Defendant has used our copyrighted work, copied it, modified it and distributed it without permission. Please make him stop."
One thing that the defendant can say is, "You're right. I have no license." Defendants do not want to say that, because if they say that they lose. So defendants, when they envision to themselves what they will say in court, realize that what they will say is, "But Judge, I do have a license. It's this here document, the GNU GPL. General Public License," at which point, because I know the license reasonably well, and I'm aware in what respect he is breaking it, I will say, "Well, Judge, he had that license but he violated its terms and under Section 4 of it, when he violated its terms, it stopped working for him."
But notice that in order to survive moment one in a lawsuit over free software, it is the defendant who must wave the GPL. It is his permission, his master key to a lawsuit that lasts longer than a nanosecond. This, quite simply, is the reason that lies behind the statement you have heard ... that there has never been a court test of the GPL.

[all emphasis mine]

imho, a perfect system would never get tried ... the reason even truly guilty people take a shot at court is b/c the law is not perfect, and sometimes they can get away with something. If everyone knew that there was no possible positive personal outcome, why would anyone bother?

Re:This is bad?

[Ancil]

If you're speaking of sites like allofmp3.com, please specify your sources or at least link to some evidence that the operation is anything but legal. It is my understanding that monetary compensation is given to the respective author for each download under the copyright laws currently in effect in that country.

Don't be ridiculous.

AllofMP3.com has songs which have never been authorized for internet distribution by any site -- for example, The Beatles have never signed on with iTunes, Napster, or any other online service. The copyright holders are still waiting to see how things play out. But their entire song catalog is available at allofmp3.com.

Even the Russian cops admit this place is illegal [com.com].

The Russian site claimed it had licenses to do so from a local clearing house, but record labels have maintained that the licenses weren't valid. After long-standing complaints, the Moscow City Police Computer Crimes division completed an investigation earlier this month and recommended that prosecutors charge the site's operators with criminal copyright infringement.

Re:But they're different companies now!

[belmolis]

The city of Sapporo of Sapporo has a grid like this, with streets just numbered East/West or North/South. This is said to be because it was laid out by American engineers in the late 19th century.

Re:How is this illegal?

[Aim Here]

You must not have been reading the same article I did.

What part of

"The kernel is a badly patched copy of the Enhanced DR-DOS kernel old version 7.01.06 without any credit to its author Udo Kuhn..."

and

"The other programs and drivers included are old versions of some popular open source, freeware and shareware products without licenses, documentation or even credit to their authors, namely..."

and

"I understand these are provided in BINARY FORM ONLY without source code provided. To my knowledge, DRDOS does NOT include a copy of the GNU GPL for these 2 programs, nor does it state that the GNU GPL applies to these 2 programs. In addition, source code for SYS & FDXXMS is not included, nor is a written offer made to provide source code upon request."

did you not understand, soldier?

Re:But they're different companies now!

[Just Some Guy]

Pretty much all cities in Utah do.

You misspelled "outside New England". I've always lived in states touching the Mississippi River or west of it and had assumed that every place assigned addresses logically. I never realized that some zipcodes use a cryptographically-strong PRNG to dole out house numbers until I met someone who'd lived in Boston.

Every time I prep a new machine

[Reziac]

I use a DOS boot disk every single time I prep a new hard disk or new system (which in my role as hardware guru for the local user group, is often). I run the partitioner from DOS and do the initial setup in DOS. Thus I not only have more direct control, I also discover sooner when something isn't working. And the whole process is a matter of a few minutes, with no large OS to install and no drivers to locate and/or fight with.

With a seriously screwed-up machine, it's often much faster to fix Windows from a DOS boot disk than it would be to reinstall Windows, hunt down obscure or nameless drivers, and do battle with OEM "tech support".

So, while average users nowadays have little need for DOS, we folk who get our hands dirty certainly still use it, and are glad to have it.

DR-DOS 8.1 no longer exists!

[Anonymous Coward]

1. It's not true that the GPL has not been tested in court. See http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200407231 5554313 [groklaw.net]
2. Breaking news: DR-DOS no longer exists! DRDOS Inc. have removed it from their site and now sell only the old version 7.03!