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GPL Gets Its Day in Court in Israel
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Tue Sep 05, 2006 07:23 AM
from the never-fun-to-break-new-legal-ground dept.
from the never-fun-to-break-new-legal-ground dept.
MadFarmAnimalz writes "In what appears to be the first court test for the GPL in the Middle East, Alexander Maryanovsky, the author of the GPL licensed Jin Chess Client is taking IchessU to court for violations of the GPL license."
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Right.... bit of clarification (Score:5, Informative)
This is an executable and front end chess client.
This has been extended by iChessU to support a closed source DLL which adds new functionality (notably video streaming between players).
The source code to the Expanded client is available [ichessu.com] and providing you have the closed source binary DLL, you can run the newly compiled program.
Isn't this like me releasing a GPL program which is linked to the nvidia or ATI blobs?
Hell, isn't it similar if I write a GPL application which uses the Windows API?
I personally feel as though this is an overreaction, the ichessu site does not hide the fact its based on JIN and offers sources, or am I wrong and this is infact a genuine GPL violation?
No it's not (Score:5, Informative)
Isn't this like me releasing a GPL program which is linked to the nvidia or ATI blobs?It isn't, because ATI and NVidia do not link to the kernel. The portions of the NVidia and ATi driver that *do* link directly to the kernel (also known as the "kernel stub"), are indeed GPL. What happns, is the closed source X driver communicates to and from the stub indirectly, not via linking.
It's actually just a different DRM/DRI implementation, which nearly all X drivers use nowadays.
Note in this case DRM does not mean "Digital Rights management", it means "Direct Rendering Manager"
Parent
Doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
To be specific - I am pretty sure the drivers use either a UNIX socket or a named pipe.
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Re:Right.... bit of clarification (Score:5, Insightful)
And in the license itself: "For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable."
IMHO, that means Windows API = ok, Java API = ok,
And that makes sense. Otherwise I could just build all of my app in my "MainApp API" and GPL my "StartMainApp()" function call...
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What happens if you release a GPL'd program with a plug-in API? That's fine.
Now you release a closed-source plug-in. That's not fine, since the plug-in is a derived work of the GPL'd plug-in system; it won't work without it.
Now, what happens if you license the plug-in API as a separate module under the LGPL (for example). The closed-source plug-in only depends on the plug-in module, which is LGPL'd. It inherits the GPL when use
Re:Right.... bit of clarification (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope.
Only part of the client source code is downloadable, not the whole; this is a violation of the GPL. Also, the iChessU has an EULA which violates the GPL by placing new restrictions on how the code may be used.
The bad faith negotations accusation may be an overreaction but it's hard not to think this when iChessU initially wanted to license JIN but backed out when it appeared too expensive for them and then proceeded to use it anyway.
This is not an overreaction but a devloper fighting to prevent a third party assuming legal control of that developers work.
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Re:Right.... bit of clarification (Score:4, Informative)
The process of installing the nVidia Kernel stub combines GPL and non-GPL code and compiles it on your machine. The resulting binary is NOT re-distributable under any licence. This is why Linux distributions do not come with the nVidia and ATI drivers built in, but you must install them separately.
This workaround works because the GPL only comes into effect when you copy a program not when you use it, as long as you are not copying (i.e. redistributing) the results you are not bound by its terms.
iChessU could use the same trick. Download the standard JIN source, download the iChessU patch and binary and compile them yourself - noone is copying the result, so the GPL is not violated. Though the resulting program contains GPL and non-GPL code and so can never be copied under any licence.
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Further information (Score:5, Informative)
In the lawsuit, it is mentioned that in Israeli law (which I cannot confirm or deny, I have no idea) the minimal fine possible for this type of offense is 10,000 NIS (about $2250).
I can translate other parts of the Hebrew documents if anyone is interested.
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Re:Further information (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Further information (Score:4, Informative)
Am I right in understanding that you want 11,000 NIS (about $2250) for each screenshot of your software that appears on their site?
10,000 NIS per screenshot, not 11,000. I realize it sounds funny asking damages for screenshots, but the Israeli law only allows between 10k and 20k of damages per violation. We are also suing via a legal "fast track" (otherwise it'd take years to get a decision) where we must ask for minimum damages. So, without the screenshot damages, I could be looking at spending the same amount of money on the lawsuit as the potential damages. Plus, after a couple of weeks of futile attempts to explain to Mr. Rabinovich that he is wrong, and him basically telling me to fuck off, you could imagine I'm a bit pissed and want to nail him for everything he has.
Alexander (aka Sasha) Maryanovsky.
Parent
Re:Right.... bit of clarification (Score:5, Informative)
I personally feel as though this is an overreaction, the ichessu site does not hide the fact its based on JIN and offers sources, or am I wrong and this is infact a genuine GPL violation?
Actually, there are several violations:
- IChessU's released source code does not compile, so it can't possibly be considered the "complete corresponding source code", regardless of the status of the audio/video library (which to the best of my understanding of the GPL is also covered by it).
- IChessU do not release their application under the GPL, but instead under a horrendous EULA [ichessu.com]. Read it, really.
- Although they do mention Jin, they don't mention my copyright. Instead it's "Copyright (C) [2006] [unknown]", as if they don't know whose copyright Jin is.
Alexander (aka Sasha) Maryanovsky.Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Clearly the fact that they asked to license the software and were refused (or offered a reasonable offer which they turned down) shows they were aware that it was GPL and wanted to license it under different terms. The fact they they went ahead and tried to bypass the license
Re:Right.... bit of clarification (Score:5, Informative)
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In a way, this is very lucky timing for GPLv3 (Score:3, Interesting)
It's great that we will get the benefit of this ruling during the year when GPLv3 [fsfeurope.org] is being written. This sort of thing provides great suggestions for what should be clearer or worded differently.
Re:In a way, this is very lucky timing for GPLv3 (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:In a way, this is very lucky timing for GPLv3 (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, at least in the US, the law may as well be written in different language because even the law-makers don't generally unde
Re:In a way, this is very lucky timing for GPLv3 (Score:5, Interesting)
There are very good reasons why this is impossible. Actually, what you are proposing is a very natural notion, that sadly turns out to be wrong. I say 'natural', because during the first third or so of the 20th century, philosophy (of language, in particular), was seeking exactly what you are driving at - a 'pure' language, free from ambiguity. This would have had benefits for legal matters, as well as philosophical ones, and even metamathematical implications. But this was shown to be a futile attempt (Wittgenstein being the major figure showing this). I'll briefly summarize why this is so.
First, when you refer to human-related things - as laws are, they mention e.g. 'assault', 'homicide', and so forth - there is no way to 'clean up' the language. It cannot be made unambiguous, because the underlying concepts are ambiguous. Try to define (as the famous example goes) 'game'. For any suggested definition, there are counterexamples (e.g. not all games are about winning or losing, not all games have scores, not all games are fun, etc. etc.). This is a simple consequence of the fact that life is complex - we use the word 'game' in many contexts, in many ways. Unlike in math, where we start with definitions, in the law we start with pre-existing human concepts and try to work with them. We therefore cannot arrive at unambiguous statements.
Second, and this is a more subtle issue, language is meaningless without a context of use. By this I mean, that if you see some scribbles on a page, they are worthless without someone to read them. A sentence + a reader are what is necessary for 'meaning' to exist. Thus, even if we write what we believe to be unambiguous text, we can never remove the element of the reader: for us, the statement is unambiguous, but for another person, with a slightly different mindset, it may not be so. You may claim that your interpretation is 'correct', but that will not avail you when a matter is put before the public, i.e. open to interpretation by many people, as the law must be.
Sorry to go on at length, but this is a fascinating topic for me.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Oh, great, as if our current laws weren't bad enough, now we get to have them written in an unsaf
Segmentation fault (core dumped)
generous offer (Score:3, Insightful)
GPL doesn't need to be tested. (Score:4, Informative)
What's being "tested", if anything, is copyright laws. And I believe that we all can agree on the fact that they are already, if nothing else, fairly tested in court.
Re:GPL doesn't need to be tested. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually it does. Or can you merge GPL code and non-GPL code in a single codebase? This is a restriction of how you can use the code you obtained through the GPL license.
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Re:GPL doesn't need to be tested. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is not a restriction that GPL adds: you never were allowed to do that in the first place. Suppose the code is not under any license, then standard copyright law applies. And copyright law does not let you copy that code to your code AT ALL.
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Better Jin link (I'm the author) (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
MOD ME UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!