Linux Devicemaker Sued In First US Test of GPL 315
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time in the U.S., a company is being taken to court for a GPL violation. The Software Freedom Law Center has sued Monsoon Multimedia over alleged GPL violations in the Hava, a place- and time-shifting TV recorder similar to the SlingBox. Interestingly, Monsoon Multimedia is run by a highly experienced international lawyer named Graham Radstone. According to his corporate biography, Radstone has an MA in Law from the University of Cambridge, England, and held the top legal spot at an unnamed "$1 billion private multinational company." He also reportedly held top management positions with Philip Morris, Pfizer, and DHL. Sounds like the makings of a good old legal Donnybrook ahead."
What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
A court would be hard pressed not to uphold a copyright claim from the SFLC. That would mean that everyone else's copyright claims on everything else are also null and void. If Viacom and Disney can do it, so can the FSF. That's how it works.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
I say {you can distribute my code} under the terms of the GPL.
I say you can {distribute my code under the terms of the GPL}.
In the former case, you have permission to distribute my code, but have violated our contract if you do so outside the terms of the GPL. In the latter case, you ONLY have permission to distribute my code if you do so under the terms of the GPL, and have violated my copyright if you do so without that conditional permission. Any sensible judge will understand that the latter is the only viable way to handle the issue, but we have some quite nonsensible judges on benches in various places these days.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it's a little bit simpler than that.
Fair and personal use exemptions notwithstanding, copying copyrighted works without permission from the copyright holder is copyright infringement. Period.
GPL'd code is copyrighted. The GPL merely grants permission to copy to people. Period.
However, the GPL _ONLY_ grants permission to those who agree to the terms of the license. If one doesn't agree, then unless alternative arrangements have been made with the copyright holder, there is nothing granting permission to copy. Without permission, any copying that isn't otherwise exempt from infringement suddenly becomes copyright infringement, just like any other copyrighted work.
The only reason derivative works are allowed to be forced to be subject to the GPL is because copyright naturally extends to derivative works anyways, as long as any copyrighted content from the original exists in the derived work.
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GPL'd code is copyrighted. The GPL merely grants permission to copy to people. Period.
Wrong.
The GPL is legal agreement between two parties -- the copyright holders and anyone who wishes to make a derivative work thereof. Like any other legal agreement, it is subject to the interpretation of the judges of the world, as argued by the lawyers of the world. (even a simple "you may use my work X in your work Y" permission is a legal agreement.)
One of the things that judges can do, if moved by a lawyer's argument or their own sense of public policy, is void part of a contract while still leavin
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Cites, please. Especially any that refer to open-source type licensing rather than distribution contracts, which are entirely different things.
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Yes, I know how the average Slashdot poster will answer. But the average Slashdot poster is NOT
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It only demands agreement if you are planning on doing something that would otherwise violate copyright law. You can do whatever the hell you want with GPL'd code -- except copy and distribute it -- without accepting it.
If you want to copy (including making derived works) and distribute those, the GPL grants permission conditional upon accepting the terms. Failing to accept the terms (or reneging on an earlier commitment to hono
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But this isn't Germany. Every nation has slightly different legal systems. I tried looking up your term "conditional license", and the only thing showing up is stuff about drivers licenses. I very strongly suspect you made up this term, and that it doesn't exist in US law.
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
This is why Slashdot is a poor source for legal information, because people like you post ridiculous theories on it.
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What gets me is that according to TFS this guy is a world renowned super lawyer. Why is he suddenly (the company is three years old) director of a smallish video-software company based around a single (GPL-violating) company. It's almost like a set-up for an assault on the GPL. A sort of legal Kuwait. Or is that too paranoid?
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Look at it this way. Many companies allow their trademarks to be used in certa
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Informative)
Well, no. The license exists. There's no way to go back in time to make it not exist. That cat is already out of the bag.
Until you give notice of termination of the license, it is still in effect and you're still not bound by your legal promise not to sue for infringement.
[I assume you mean "you're still bound" :-) ].
Perhaps that's why the GPL has the following section?
...that is, giving notice in advance that performing certain actions will terminate the licence.
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people who are lawyers [...] would say that the GPL is a licence, not a contract
The problem with this is that there is no such thing as "license law." All licenses are governed by contract law. What a license is not is a bilateral contract. However, all software licenses are contracts--you can review any case in the field and find reference to contracts, be it Netscape, ProCD, Mortenson, Gateway, or any of the other seminal cases in software licensing/EULAs.
A license is a grant of rights, and while that seems to be a fair case here, the trick is to remember that there exists a dist
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
The GPL's termination clause specifies that non-compliance with the terms revokes all permissions granted, voiding the copyright holder's obligation not to sue. Sure, the countersuit might come, but it would simply be a matter for the court to first read the contract and determine that it no longer granted any permissions. At that point the copyright infringement claim goes forward.
All of this supposes that the GPL is a contract, rather than a unilateral grant of a limited license. Moglen's position is that it's the latter. If he's correct, then your whole argument is moot.
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Actually, I think you are wrong on this one... it doesnt matter whether you agree to the GPL or not, you need permission to use copyrighted works. The GPL offers such permission in agreeing to it - in whole. By ignoring parts of the GPL, you thus are stating you don't agree to that contract and would need other means to obtain permission to use the copyrighted work - or it's copyright infringement.
Now, IANAL, but I would think that "claiming" to agree to the GPL and then violating it would be pursued as t
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
An agreement or contract is only valid if both parties accept it. It's not enough that one party does. If you don't accept the contract, but still copy the software, you're not violating the contract, cause you never entered it in the first place, but you are violating copyrights.
Saying "by copying this code you agree to the contract" is not valid, because there's nothing to stop you from disagreeing and yet copy it. It's not enough that the copyright holder says you agree -- you too must agree.
In other words, it's pretty much up to the defendant whether this should be seen as a copyright violation or a breech of contract. It's clearly a violation no matter what, but of two different kinds.
The GPL isn't a contract (Score:5, Informative)
The GPL is a distribution license (as stated by Eben Moglen), which you are free to accept or reject. And the instant that you redistribute the work that it covers (and hence copy that work), then you are subject to copyright law, whether or not you agreed to the license.
And that's where agreeing or rejecting the GPL becomes relevant, because if you didn't agree to the GPL then you are guilty of copyright infringement, since nothing else gives you the right to copy. Simple.
Contracts require bilateral agreement. A distribution license doesn't require your agreement at all --- nobody forces you to agree to it, but it's on offer if you want it. However, if you don't accept it then nothing else will protect you from copyright infringement if you redistribute the work.
Re:The GPL isn't a contract (Score:4, Informative)
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An agreement or contract is only valid if both parties accept it.
Yes. But acceptance is not the same as performance. The GPL is constructed in such a way that downloading the software is acceptance to be bound by its terms. No explicit grant of permission is needed from the copyright holder, since the authorization exists in making the software available in the first place. No specific notification is required by the licensee, as the GPL has neither requested nor required it.
Once a contract is accepted by both parties, a license exists and the power to revoke has le
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Informative)
Bullshit. It is no such thing.
Read Section 0, second paragraph, and Section 5 (referring to GPL 2, which is the one in question here).
Offering the software for download indicates acceptance of the terms by the offeror of the download (who may be several steps downstream from the copyright holder). The downloader is free to do with it as he or she wishes, totally ignoring the GPL unless he or she wishes to further redistribute the code (modified or unmodified). The license, should they choose to accept it, is granted by the upstream copyright holder, not the offeror of the download.
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It's the only thing that grants you legal access to the copyrighted material.
There is no such restriction in law. Where's the license that grants you legal access to read this copyrighted material? Every work is copyrighted from the moment of its creation. What grants you legal access to download this website? Or read the newspaper? Or a billboard? Or listen to the radio? Copyright law places restrictions on copying (duh!) not reading/receiving. (Don't bother mentioning
not necessarily (Score:2)
However, another interpretation, which also has some precedent, is that the GPL creates a contract, under which the distributor has the right to distribute in return for following its terms. In this case, if the distributor fails to comply with the GPL, it's not a copyright violation, because they did have a copyright license (the GPL), but it's a contract violation, because they breached the GPL's agreed licensing terms. Still il
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Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
[http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html]
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There is in fact a fair body of case law covering software copyrights, including the abstraction-filtration-comparison test from the Second and Tenth Circuits that look at filtering out the things necessary to make the software work in its given environment (eg externally defined constants, protocols, etc) as not proof of infringement.
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Then of course there is the negativ
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A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
and look at how people disagree about that!
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Oh? Which ones? Any of those in the US?
I've heard a few non-lawyers handwaving that sort of speculation, nothing anywhere remotely authoritative.
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I have heard of a ruling that the Artistic License [lwn.net] is a contract. I Are you sure you are not confusing that with the GPL?
Anyway, suppose it is ruled to be a contract. You cannot claim statutory damages. However you might be able to persuade the court to order specific performance (they are usu
There is a big deal (Score:4, Informative)
What remains untested is the interpretation of the GPL and there are large parts of the GPL which are open to different interpretation.
For instance, the definition of "derived work" is pretty key to understanding the the GPL and the definition of that phrase is from being a done deal. The FSF has an faq that give Stallman's definitions and interpretations but these are not binding on the GPL.
Re:There is a big deal (Score:5, Informative)
For instance, the definition of "derived work"
I thought that copyright law was pretty clear on what a "derived work" is. The GPL does not modify copyright law.
false and true (Score:4, Informative)
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Copyright law is not clear on anything.
That's why you need lawyers.
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It'll be interesting to see where this case goes & if other lawsuits will follow if this one is a success.
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It's actually kind of funny, Slashdot gives nowhere near the coverage to overseas GPL lawsuits.
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I think this will be an interesting suit. Without knowing all the details, it sounds like the situation may be:
Monsoon built a box, and put the BusyBox software on it, and uses the BusyBox software as a "black box" utility package.
Now, the question is: are the things that use BusyBox derivative of BusyBox or not? It doesn't make sense that Monsoon could be sued because it's not distributing the source code for BusyBox, because the product offered is not "BusyBox" - besides that, BusyBox source can presuma
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Informative)
I think the issues would arise if:
1) They are not telling anyone that they are using GPL software and not passing on the license or an offer for the source,
2) They have not modified BusyBox and are not passing on where they got the sourc0e for it from or passing on an offer for the source,
3) They have modified BusyBox and wont share the changes to their customers.
4) They are making some sort of claim that the GPL means that copyright doesn't apply - I have heard it before but never from a top lawyer.
In all cases the appropriate result would be that Monsoon either release the source, plus and modifications and derivatives, plus the license, to their customers, or they must stop using the software and presumably pay some compensation to both the copyright holder (for copyright violation / contract violation) and preferably also pay compensation to their customers (they are also harmed by this after all). In no case should they be compelled to release code that does not fall under the GPL (as decided by the court - if it gets there.)
Well that's my view anyway, but then I am not a top lawyer and have never worked for a $billion company. - IANAL this is not advice.
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Sorry, this is wrong. It is not true that the GPL constrains only the distribution of derived works. According to clause (3) of the GPL, if you distribute unmodified binaries you must make the source available. Here is the relevant portion:
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You're very confused about what the GPL does. If Monsoon is selling a piece of hardware that is running GPL code, that is very clearly distribution. If they haven't modified the code in doing so, they are still required to make the source available to their customers should they request it. And if they have modified the source at all, their modifications must be made available. Whether or not there is other code included in the product that is unrelated to busybox is immaterial. They can put all the proprie
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Well, it appears I'm uninformed, because I wrote it that way. The article isn't very clear about what the suit is about - and I admit I didn't read the case filing - but if the suit is about "they didn't offer the source code to BusyBox and we couldn't find where they are making that source available, and then we asked them to make it available and they didn't" that's a different suit than "they are using BusyBox but they aren't making all the source to everything on their hardware available". So, I was
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that's a different suit than "they are using BusyBox but they aren't making all the source to everything on their hardware available".
I think the more tricky points here are about what it will do to the related works (aggregates, etc.)
This is very clearly spelled out in the GPL. From version 3:
As far as the difference between a png decoder and a Stephen King novel, there
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Yes, and for every instance of that box that Monsoon sells (or gives away), they are distribiting a copy of that BusyBox software.
The GPL doesn't offer the option of distributers in Monsoon's situation just saying "oh, you can get the source from BusyBox's web site". Monsoon has to provide or make available the source themselves. This is especially true if Monsoon has modified BusyBox (o
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:4, Informative)
The second, and perhaps bigger issue here is, as I've already said, set precedent... so if this case is handled poorly by the SFLC, and precedent is set improperly, it's going to make enforcing the GPL that much harder for the next person. While it's unlikely that the SFLC would lose, if their lawyers completely botched it, it would be very bad for the GPL, at least in the short term and would potentially encourage unscrupulous companies to continue or begin to infringe the GPL, since there is case law that shows it's unenforceable.
So yes, it's a big case. Any case that establishes precedent is a big case for the issue involved.
They're seeking damages (Score:2)
WHEREFORE, Plaintiffs respectfully request judgment against the Defendant as follows:
(1) That the Court issue injunctive relief against Defendant, and that Defendant, its directors,
principals, officers, agents, representatives, servants, employees, attorneys, successors and assigns,
and all others in active concert or participation with Defendant, be enjoined and restrained from
copying, modifying, distributing or making any other infringing use of Plaintiffs' software.
(2) That the Court order Defendant to pay Plaintiffs' actual and consequential damages incurred,
in an amount to be determined at trial;
(3) That the Court order Defendant to account for and disgorge to Plaintiffs all profits derived
by Defendant from its unlawful acts;
(4) That the Court order Defendant to pay Plaintiffs' litigation expenses, including reasonable
attorney's fees and costs of this action; and
(5) That the Court grant Plaintiffs any such further relief as the Court may deem just and
proper.
That's never been done before.. and it could spell a new era of Free Software development.
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Item 3 on the list is a crock of shit, to make the device they would have had to do something themselves, and the SFLC is apparently saying "give us all the money you made, even though we didn't make most of the device". Fine them, yes. Damages, fine. But demanding they hand over all the profit? Fuck off. Seriously.
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It's almost the default settlement in copyright infringement cases.
It's *trivial* to comply with the GPL, I don't know why anyone would risk their profits by not.
No Stallman! (Score:3, Funny)
Doesn't really matter (Score:3, Insightful)
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I sincerely doubt it will come to this. Once Monsoon's lawyers read over the complaint and the GPL, they'll advise Monsoon to settle. The SFLC will advise Anderson on what's reasonable to settle for.
The lawsuit is just away of getting Monsoon's attention, since they seemed inclined to try to blow the whole thing off. Some people/companies are like that.
Over under (Score:4, Funny)
250?
too conservative (Score:2)
Maybe they're just clumsy (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to say that I agree. In all such things I ask myself: "What would Eban Moglen do?" Until recently he was the legal genius behind the GPL. (maybe he still is, I'm a bit confused) His approach was always to resolve the problem without needing to sue. It really does seem to me that these guys went off half cocked. If you want to see what happens when you do that, check out SCO.
The reason we should care about this is that it could produce a precedent that we don't like.
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'In a statement, Eben Moglen, Founding Director of the SFLC, said, "Free software licenses such as the GPL exist to protect the freedom of computer users. If we don't ensure that these licenses are respected, then they will not be able to achieve their goal. Our goal is simply to ensure that Monsoon Multimedia complies with the terms of the GPL." '
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Looks like Dave is an idiot. (Score:2)
DaveJakeman over on Groklaw said
I'd have to say that Mr. Jakeman has serious reading comprehension issues.
The relevant part is
16. On September 11, 2007, through their counsel, Plaintiffs notified Defendant of its unlawful conduct based upon its failure to comply with the License.
(emphasis mine.)
So they didn't just notify a "support droid", they notified Monsoon's lawyers.
And the lawyers never responded. Not even a "we'll look into your claims" or anything like that.
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Plaintiff's counsel (ie, the lawyers) notified Monsoon on September 11, and you can bet it wasn't by posting on their web site. Monsoon has so far ignored them. Having legal papers served (eg notice of a lawsuit) will be more effective at getting their attention.
This has been pointed out over there, too.
It's also been pointed out that Monsoon has been informally advised (ie, not by the copyright holder per se) of their GPL violations for months.
Re:Maybe they're just clumsy (Score:5, Insightful)
The company made a conscious choice to bundle Linux and Busybox with their product. This was a choice made even before the product was on the market. They demoed the product 4 months ago [myhava.com], and have been selling it commercially for 2 months. There's no way that the company wasn't aware of the fact that they were distributing Linux. And if the company (which presumably includes programmers and engineers) honestly want to claim that they had no idea what the GPL was, they're nuts.
When they were confronted about the fact that they were in violation of the law (about 3 weeks ago), they brushed it off, "jokingly" accusing the guy who discovered it of reverse-engineering and violating the EULA, then saying that the forums were for paying customers only. They also ignored phone calls. When they admitted to it (2 weeks ago), they said they'd put it on a timetable, and not make legal compliance a top priority. When someone says "you're doing something illegal and could get sued for it", the right answer isn't "I'll have to contact the engineering team and see what the expected scope (level of effort) is and then balance it against our other development tasks". You don't balance legal compliance against "other development tasks". Especially since the relevant modules are in their SVN or whatever. IMHO, they've sort of brought it upon themselves.
(IANAL)
Re:Maybe they're just clumsy (Score:5, Informative)
I have to say that I agree. In all such things I ask myself: "What would Eban Moglen do?" Until recently he was the legal genius behind the GPL. (maybe he still is, I'm a bit confused) His approach was always to resolve the problem without needing to sue. It really does seem to me that these guys went off half cocked. If you want to see what happens when you do that, check out SCO.
Well at first I thought as you did, at least until I went to Hava's forums [myhava.com] to see what got everybody up in arms. The support drones first response was to accuse the users of violating Hava's EULA:
Greetings all.
I have a little secret to let you in on - HAVA runs Linux! Yes, much of the source is GPL and we should publish those sections which we have modified per the terms of GPL. A project is underway to pull this together.
A couple of observations - some of you appear to be violating the terms of the End User License Agreement, specifically:
Quote:
2. Restrictions
You recognize and agree that the HAVA Software including its structure, source code and the design and structure of modules or programs, constitute valuable trade secrets owned by Snappymultimedia or its licensors. You will not copy or use the HAVA Software except as expressly permitted by this EULA and, specifically, you will not
[...]
(b) yourself or through any third party modify, reverse engineer, disassemble or decompile the HAVA Software in whole or part, except to the extent expressly permitted by applicable law, and then only after you have notified Snappymultimedia in writing of your intended activities;
Seems to me that some of you have just come out blatantly admitting you are reverse engineering the firmware - or trying to. How should we handle this?
Also, please realize that NOT ALL of HAVA's important functionality is covered by GPL, so you won't actually have everything you need to get HAVA working.
_________________
Best regards,
MyHAVA Support
May be a mere aggregation (Score:3, Informative)
Anyone willing to give more details about where the legal problem is? Thanks in advance.
Re:May be a mere aggregation (Score:4, Informative)
These are requirements of the license.
It's really that simple.
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If they put the source on a cd and distribute it with the device, or even, put the source ON the device, they'll be in compliance with the license.
Otherwise, they have to supply to anyone they sell the device to a written offer, valid for 3 years, to provide the source code to any third party.. and yeah, putting the source on their server would be a way to do that, but they don't have to.
It's all spelled out here [gnu.org].
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No, they can't. The GPL says "on a medium customarily used for software interchange" [emphasis added}, not "on a medium historically used for software interchange".
I haven't seen paper tape used in over 25 years, nor punch cards in nearly as long. The last 9-track tape reel I saw being used (not cou
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IANAL, but it doesn't sound like a proprietary unpacker would meet those requirements.
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So long as they aren't linking with the BusyBox code, yes, that's all they have to do to comply. That's what makes it so odd that they haven't complied. All it will cost them is five minutes to set up and a little bandwidth.
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Place- and Time-shifting TV Recorder ...? (Score:2, Funny)
A SPACIAL-TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT AUDITORY VISUAL TRANSLATIONAL DEVICE!
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A SPACIAL-TEMPORAL DISPLACEMENT AUDITORY VISUAL TRANSLATIONAL DEVICE!
Wow, that sound so good I think we should scrap the copyright idea and go straight for a patent!
gpl-violations.org (Score:2)
If only.... (Score:2)
In a statement, Eben Moglen, Founding Director of the SFLC, said, "Free software licenses such as the GPL exist to protect the freedom of computer users. If we don't ensure that these licenses are respected, then they will not be able to achieve their goal."
Yay! (Score:2, Interesting)
Why not use a BSD? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Possibly. Corporate types usually have no clue what's happening with in-house software development. I'd say it's likely to be developers who used GPLed code just to get the job done in a hurry. If so, that's a problem because the corporation needs to be aware of its legal responsibilities. It may turn out no-one outside the software team was even aware of the GPL violations. Wouldn't be the first time.
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What's the point?
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btw, at the boot prompt type: linux root=/dev/hda init=/foo.bin
the root filesystem is mounted by the kernel.. init is started by the kernel, and in this case is my custom image foo.bin. As for daemons etc, wtf, it's a set top box.
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Linux is a kernel, not an operating system. It appears they are using the Linux kernel and BusyBox (for something).
Filmzy said:
I'd like to see you boot a working Unix system without those tools. I'm not talking about running a shell. I'm talking about simply booting the system. Mounting the root filesystem, starting init, starting whatever daemons are necessary... The Linux boot scripts depend *very* heavily on these tools. (That's not to say it's theoretically impossible to boot without using 'ls', 'cd', 'rm', etc... But you would need *something* that accomplishes the same functions.)
He seems to think they are running a stripped down Linux distro on this box. You seem to think the same.
Why do you think this?
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He seems to think they are running a stripped down Linux distro on this box. You seem to think the same. Why do you think this?
Well, they've said that they're running Linux [myhava.com] on the box (gary-MM, halfway down the page). People also found evidence of Linux on the Hava using nmap and strings(1). I'm assuming it's with a patch-set, but you're right in that it could probably just be compiled with only certain modules. As far as the "for something", given the list of Busybox tools [busybox.net], the idea that they're using at least a handful of them does not surprise me. Maybe there are ways around using them, but that's not the point.
I'm full
Where is the copyright registration (Score:2, Interesting)
If not, the question arises about the legal requirements about having a registration *before* going to court.
If so, it raises the questions of statutory damages, but also raises the question whether the registration(s) were made by the actual authors of each separate snippet of code in the composite work, each having its own author and date of authorship.
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I see you have been under a rock. You might want to catch up on some other events such as: the fall of the Berlin Wall, the end of the cold war, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
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In other words, even if you have a copyright you can't sue anybody until you register the copyright.
And as far as I can see from the complaint busybox isn't registered. And there is a question whether the plaintiffs can do anything more than file a copyright registration on any but pieces of busybox, particularl
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(b), no action for infringement of the copyright in any United States work shall be instituted until preregistration or registration of the copyright claim has been made in accordance with this title.
The complaint does not claim that the work is registered by the author, or because it is may be a work from many hands, by the authors (plural).
Not the only thing they stole (Score:2)
Look familiar [tivo.com]?
check out the firmware for yourself (Score:3, Informative)
myhava.com/support_downloads_hava.html [myhava.com]
For the, "Firmware - 32 bit version" (4.4 MB), just strip the first 96 bytes & mount it as a cramfs image.
Monsoon must be suicidal (Score:4, Funny)
The owner of Monsoon might want to start thinking about what he wants written on his headstone right about now. If it were me, I'd be checking land prices in Siberia or the Antarctic.
Bad idea (Score:2, Funny)
~~~~
Oy vi (Score:3, Funny)
Particularly Interesting.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Particularly interesting as Cambridge University don't award MA's in Law. As I was told, Cambridge generally don't give out Masters considering their graduate degree's being already equivalent, although they do seem to award out some Masters.
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as the 'product' may contain binaries with back doors that
you can not see.
I want the source that goes into the 'product', I'm not
going to trust someone to say that the 'product' was built
using version x.y.z of some code.
Stop spreading Bullshit! (Score:2)
The GPL quite explicitly states the opposite , to wit:
"To "convey" a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies. Mere interaction with a user through a computer network, with no transfer of a copy, is not conveying."
If I link to an active server that serves up the same source code I used to buil
No (Score:3, Informative)
If they are unwilling to distribute source, they shouldn't use GPL covered code, period. Use BSD or license proprietary code instead.
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donnybrook \DON-ee-brook\, noun:
1. A brawl; a free-for-all.
2. A heated quarrel or dispute.