Suit Claims Diebold Voting Machines Violate GPL 252
An anonymous reader writes "Diebold Inc. and its subsidiary, Premier Election Solutions, is using Ghostscript in its electronic election systems even though Diebold and PES 'have not been granted a license to modify, copy, or distribute any of Artifex's copyrighted works,' Artifex claims in court papers filed late last month in US District Court for Northern California. The gs-devel list first brought up the possible GPL violation a year ago."
The thing is (Score:2, Interesting)
The GPL only applies when you distribute software. They are probably not distributing the software outside their own company.
For one of the people who will be running the election hall on election day, when they get delivery of the election machine, is that counted as receiving a copy of the software?
The machine itself is closed and locked down, and most likely cannot be opened without a special key from Diebold.
If that is not the case, hit me with a cluebat.
Re:Are they distributing the software? (Score:2, Interesting)
The software is distributed with the voting machines.
IANAL, but that should mean that Diebold are required to supply the source to people/organizations that buy their machines.
Re:The thing is (Score:4, Interesting)
Many people have said this, but delivering software on a hardware platform is delivering it. This is why we have source code for things like the linux running on Linksys routers. The routers are mean to be as locked up as a voting machine, but because of the GPL they are forced to distribute the source.
Re:The thing is (Score:1, Interesting)
They are probably not distributing the software outside their own company.
the software on the machines they sell doesn't leave their company? how can they do that?
For one of the people who will be running the election hall on election day, when they get delivery of the election machine, is that counted as receiving a copy of the software?
does that machine work without any software? why the hell wouldn't you consider it's being distributed?
The machine itself is closed and locked down, and most likely cannot be opened without a special key from Diebold.
and PC's are closed and locked with screws. can you sell them with a pirated copy of windows on their hard drive?
Re:How are they violating the GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
But not half as cheap and simple as using paper and pencil, and having thousands of volunteers counting in parallel. Oh I know, sometimes the electoral ballots are huge in the US, but really, why does it have to be such bloody rigmarole every time there's an election there?
Re:The thing is (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Are they distributing the software? (Score:5, Interesting)
When they sell the machine to the buyer it is distributing the software that the machine runs.
Google Linksys, they were in a similar situation a few years ago. I'd love to see the same outcome this time!
GPL issue ok, but whose issue is it? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Are they distributing the software? (Score:3, Interesting)
They would have to give source for the version they used. Putting a gostscript.tar.gz in the c:/ would have been good enough.
Linking to a license text or source code on servers other than yours. This amounts to GPL Section "3c" (passing on a written offer), which is only valid for non-commercial distribution. They committed commercial distribution. So they should have just dropped a src tar on the machine or on a cd that came with it.
Re:The thing is (Score:5, Interesting)
The machine itself is closed and locked down, and most likely cannot be opened without a special key from Diebold.
That you can make from pictures foolishly posted online. Does anyone seriously doubt that Diebold machines are, at best, woefully badly made?
To put it another way (true conversation):
Nerd One: I don't get it, it's not hard to design a machine with buttons that counts ballots fairly in a secure manner.
Nerd Two: It's not hard, there's just no market for it.
Re:We Tax payer want our money back! (Score:3, Interesting)
Diebold's voting systems division was an acquisition of Global Election Systems. The ATM and votings systems share nothing but the brand. They also spun off their voting systems to a new company called Premier Election Systems, I suspect because all the scandal was hurting their brand in other lines of business.
Re:Are they distributing the software? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:We Tax payer want our money back! (Score:3, Interesting)
The threats are different. With an ATM it's usually the man on the street attacking and the institution (i.e. bank) trying to stop the attack. With voting machines it's the institutions (i.e. political parties) that would be attacking and the man on the street that wants to see it stopped.
With different threat models, come different security methods. I'm sure ATM's are quite secure (at least up to the banks insurance amount). But the same techniques and assumptions don't work to secure a voting box.