FSF Settles Suit Against Cisco 194
Saint Aardvark writes "The Free Software Foundation has announced that they've settled their lawsuit with Cisco (reported earlier here). In the announcement, they say that Cisco has agreed to appoint a Free Software Director for Linksys, who will report periodically to the FSF; to notify Linksys customers of their rights; and to make a monetary donation to the FSF. An accompanying blog entry explains further: 'Whenever we talk about the work we do to handle violations, we say over and over again that getting compliance with the licenses is always our top priority. The reason this is so important is not only because it provides a goal for us to reach, but also because it gives us a clear guide to choosing our tactics. This is the first time we've had to go to court over a license violation.'"
mention this next time someone says OSS is bad (Score:5, Interesting)
Compare this to what the BSA is advocating [pcmag.com]. Essentially any disgruntled employee can put unlicensed commercial software on a computer and then report the violation to the BSA for a reward. Sure companies can put millions of dollars of safeguards to prevent harassment from inefficient employees, but why bother. Just make it a policy to only use free software, and when the BSA comes knocking, show them the policy and the minimal cost efforts that makes all other software the responsibility of the user.
This will also help long term interpretability, as OSS has minimal incentives to obstificate the data to force users to continue to pay the ransom to access said data.
If you act now (Score:5, Funny)
You get a Free Software Director.
Disclaimer: Free Software Director is not 'free', nor 'software'.
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With purchase of a second Software Director. *
* Free Software Director must be of equal or lesser value than the purchased Software Director. Limited to supplies on hand. Offer void where prohibited.
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If compensation was "what the lawsuit was really about" why bother with license compliance at all? Please justify the logic behind your post.
I'm nervous about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm nervous about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Cisco decided to release their sources right when they used GNU licensed code. If there is a security risk because of being open, it will be their fault and not RMS :)
I think it won't be a bad thing, you will see amazing amount of obvious flaws will be fixed in months as result of it. Especially home devices will benefit. Don't worry, MS thought home users (with unfortunate reasons) that they should update their software for security, performance. All Cisco/Linksys product I have is a dumb gigabit switch but I am sure the smart stuff already has easy update functionality.
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Linksys always intended to release the code. By and large, they already have. If you follow all the way to the original complaint [fsf.org], it's all about modified GNU tools, not any core router components that Linksys might want to keep secret. Also, they usually would release the source, only they made a lot of mistakes in the process. They'd release the source late, release the wrong version of the source, or forget to include all the necessary tools to build the source, etc.
Even though in most cases Linksys did
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So are you saying Linksys have started supplying the source for the drivers for the Broadcom wireless in many of their routers?
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Oh, obviously FSF could only sue regarding software they are the copyright holders to. So not the drivers (that'd require Linux copyright holders to sue), not Busybox, etc.
I wonder if the FSF's settlement was restricted in the same way. I suspect it was, in which case this settlement does not mean LinkSys have or will cease breaching the GPL with their products shipments..
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I must be missing something - I only see where they are releasing the code to version of GPL software used on their routers. That's not the same thing as releasing their OS.
Yeah, thank god Windows is closed source. I (Score:2, Troll)
If closed source is secure, then please hook up windows XP to the internet without a opensource router in between.
Thanks for playing clueless scaremongerer. You fail, please insert another coin to try again.
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You misunderstand. Just because you release the code, it doesn't magically become as secure because it's "open source". Open Source is secure because it goes through a process. A process this code didn't see. That process allows for corrections when errors are made. This process takes time. And what I said in my original post is that there is going to be a window between when we, the community, improve the quality of product up to other open source standards, and when the source code is released, during whi
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Be, all that you can be, in a botnet!
Uncle Spam wants you!
RTFA (Score:2)
Who said anything about Cisco releasing the source to their routers? Please read the article before working yourself into a tizzy over nothing.
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Cisco releasing the source code for thousands of routers doesn't strike me as being a good thing.
Huh? What part of GPL did Cisco not understand? If they did not want to release their source code, then they should not have used used other's GPL code in their products.
They could have either:
A. Used something under BSD license and kept the code closed
or
B. Wrote their own.
The fact they used someone else's GPL code in their products means they used someone eles's work.
If you are so worried about it, then take y
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They also had the option to stop distributing the stuff right now, that is considered a 'remedy' under the GPL. Or at least it was under GPLv2. If you cannot contractually release the code, it is your sole remedy. Or again, was. I'm waayyyy too lazy today. Headache, hard to think.
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No, there should be no period before it is released, there is no part of the story missing, and it should not be discussed except to say that you are plainly *wrong*. Nobody held a gun to their head and forced them to use GPL code in their routers. As the GP said, they understood, or at least should've, their obligations with regard to using GPL'd code. Either way, they have no excuse for not following them.
If *I* were a major Cisco client, and this caused any security problems, I'd be furious about them us
No good reason to be nervous. (Score:2)
There's no good reason to be nervous. Adovcating for obscurity through secrecy is never wise, not in the short term nor in the long term. In your scenario the vague threat you point to always existed, it was a matter of time before it was fixed and (so long as the software was non-free) never under anyone's control to fix except the proprietor (who may have become uncooperative). Software freedom doesn't become a bad idea because it becomes real late in the process. Software freedom is always better tha
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Cisco got into trouble about this when they bought linksys which made some hardware that used GPL stuff. They used linux, uLibC, BusyBox, Zebra, and other projects. Then they were contacted and they released source that was not really the source used. They then basically corrected that. Then this situation kept repeating a few times.
If you were worried about security, there was a bug in an web page used for ping that let you run arbitrary commands as root on a whole bunch of hardware. This was figured-out b
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As I've said before, people use the GPL in order to try and maintain favour/good PR with Stallmanite fanatics, when in practical terms, another license would be a better choice.
The BSD license makes no stipulations as to whether parts of a given program license it or not. Cisco could have licensed 3-5 files of their entire project BSD if they wanted, while still closing the rest completely, and if they then wanted to, they could relicense and close the rest later on, in order to create a product.
The BSD (o
!donation (Score:5, Insightful)
Cisco has agreed to [...] make a monetary donation to the FSF.
Um, that's not a donation.
Donations are gifts. Gifts are given freely, not as a penalty for wrongdoing or in return for dropping a cause of action.
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It's just an issue in the summary write-up, they used the word contribution in the actual acticle.
RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a tax deductible donation to a 501(c)3 charitable foundation, agreed to as part of a out of court settlement. It was freely given, Cisco could have gone to trial instead.
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This is a tax deductible donation to a 501(c)3 charitable foundation, agreed to as part of a out of court settlement. It was freely given, Cisco could have gone to trial instead.
If the alternative is being taken to court, you can hardly call it a "freely given" donation.
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Okay, but it is a donation. The important part is that it's tax deductible. I don't think we really have a word for 'tax deductible contribution given under duress,' so 'donation' will have to do.
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I think state sales tax falls under that.
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I don't think we really have a word for 'tax deductible contribution given under duress,'
Yes, we do.
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Perhaps the FSF didnt want to put a price on it, so they required cisco to pay what they think is fair.
In that situation, cisco has choice in the amount they pay rather than if they pay or not, they amount the choose is far more powerful than the demand of having to pay something, so its reasonable i think to consider it a donation.
But then again i didnt RTFA, so i could have it all wrong.
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This is a tax deductible donation
The correct word is "contribution," not "donation." Modern dictionaries don't draw much distinction between the two words, but if you look at the origin of each word, contribute comes from the latin for "bringing together," and donate comes from the latin for "giving." It is more precisely correct to describe an involuntary transfer of funds that is still tax deductible as a "contribution" rather than a "donation."
To say that Cisco acted voluntarily since their alternative was going to trial is like saying
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I can only assume that this was modded Insightful by your fellow cultists.
I suppose in a way, it's something to be admired. Loyalty in really any form is rare, these days.
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If FSF and Cisco both agree that it is a donation, does it matter what anyone else thinks?
Make that "... and the IRS" and I'm with you.
If other people think it was a disguised damages award, so much the better - both for the EFF's bargaining position next time out and to promote a reduction of the number of infringers in the future. B-)
Somewhere... (Score:2)
... anti-GPL trolls are sobbing silently in the dark. Boo fricken hoo!
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No, we aren't. It's on record that cults generally don't outlive their founder, and he's getting on in years.
The only thing that those of us who dislike the FSF really need to do is wait, at this point. The group is primarily Stallman's cult of personality, and as I've already said, now that they're not producing code any more, they don't have any hugely compelling reason to exist.
Once Stallman dies, the group will collapse. It might take a couple of years, perhaps; but a look at the historical pattern w
Surprised this wasn't mentioned (Score:2, Funny)
John Chambers is now required to grow a neckbeard.
FSF shows us how to handle infringement (Score:3, Informative)
This cannot be said enough, particularly amongst a crowd that discusses the latest goings-on with the corporate media lobbyists they (justifiably) hate: Unlike the major corporate media copyright holders, the FSF sues and gets license compliance which is what they're really after. You'll notice that the FSF isn't seeking to bankrupt Cisco (even while recognizing that corporations aren't people). This is a far cry from what the MPAA, RIAA, and other corporate copyright holders pursue with the public—economic domination.
And, as I've said before [slashdot.org], violating the GPL is not like violating other licenses and here's another way in which that is the case: GPLv3 has language which makes the situation better for violators who correct their behavior. As the plain language guide to the GPL [fsf.org] explains, under GPLv2 a violator had to beg the copyright holder to have their rights under the GPL restored because those rights vanished instantly and permanently upon license violation. Under GPLv3 section 8 [fsf.org] violators catch a break: "if you violate the license, you'll get your rights back once you stop the violation, unless a copyright holder contacts you within 60 days. After you receive such a notice, you can have your rights fully restored if you're a first-time violator and correct the violation within 30 days.". Other free software licenses have no similarly forgiving language; it appears that under the new BSD license if one violates any of the 3 conditions listed in the license one loses permission to "[redistribute] and use [the covered program] in source and binary forms" because the violator reverts to the default state of copyright: no permission to copy, share, or modify.
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Other free software licenses have no similarly forgiving language
That's because other (read: legitimate) free software licenses generally don't need them.
I'm tired of hearing people claim that the FSF is anything other than a disease, to be honest. Maybe back when they were still actually developing or maintaining software, you might have been able to claim that they were doing something useful; but these days they don't really do anything other than rabble rouse and occasionally legally harass people.
I kn
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Other free software licenses have no similarly forgiving language
That's because other (read: legitimate) free software licenses generally don't need them.
I'm tired of hearing people claim that the FSF is anything other than a disease, to be honest. Maybe back when they were still actually developing or maintaining software, you might have been able to claim that they were doing something useful; but these days they don't really do anything other than rabble rouse and occasionally legally harass people.
I know, I know...you're going to say that the only reason why the FSF goes after people in court is because they violate the GPL. If the GPL wasn't blatantly anticommercial, however, it wouldn't be an issue; if Cisco had simply used something BSD licensed, they could have done what they liked and the court case never would have happened.
Of course, we know the reason why people who have no intention of complying with the GPL use it; it's because they want to curry favour with the freaks who've drunk sufficient amounts of Stallman's Kool Aid that they actually think it's a genuinely worthwhile license.
The GPL 2 I can tolerate, but the GPL 3, no. The license aside, however, one thing that has always been true is that the FSF are a textbook destructive cult, and Stallman himself is the proverbial aspirant cult leader; he's the computing world's answer to Lefayette Ronald Hubbard.
Development of the GNU project has been primarily handed over to Red Hat at this point, and as I've already said, I consider the GPL 3 a bad and overly restrictive license, even if v2 wasn't. Given those two points, the FSF have been reduced to not much more than a group of low budget terrorists, and the organisation should thus be abolished at this point. If it has ceased maintaining software or generating real code, it has outlived its' usefulness.
Little bitter?
The canard that the GPL is "anticommercial" is silly, but it's repeated often enough it's worth dismantling.
The GPL is not in any way anticommercial. It explicitly permits commercial use. When I license my code under the GPL, I'm accepting that someone can take that code and make billions from it, and they will not owe me a nickel. I'm not presenting that as a negative, mind you. When one licenses under any free license, that is one of the freedoms one is granting to everyone in the world.
Many
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I think the forgiving language there is the three conditions the BSD license imposes. With such trivial requests anyone violating should lose any and all protection afforded by the license.
Re:This is the first time we've had to go to court (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe the FSF (unlike some other IP-related litigants out there) only wants people to comply with the GPL, and will settle once the defendant agrees to do so (as opposed to extorting money out of the defendants)?
FSF should've claimed the attorney-fees-to-date it had to incur, but that's about it. If they were to push for any kind of "punitive" damages, or *AA-style ridiculous "compensation fees" that would portray them as just another trolling IP extortionist. Kudos to the FSF for going for what's right rather than what's rich.
They did get fees (Score:2)
There was a donation made to the FSF from Cisco as part of the settlement.
Betcha "attorney's fees" were what that was for...
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This is a win for Cisco as well. They get plenty of good karma, and put non-compliant competition at a disavantage. All for little or no real cost.
The Linksys routers in question command a premium, even on the used market, precisely because of the GPL and hackability.
Win-win, all around. Any more, Cisco and the FSF would have to get a room. Kudos on a job well done.
Re:This is the first time we've had to go to court (Score:5, Interesting)
Amen to that. I have two WRT54G routers, both with DD-WRT24sp1. I just upgraded the one I'm using from v24; the other is a version 5 unit which can only run micro, but that's what's on it. Comb your local flea markets :)
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Or maybe the FSF (unlike some other IP-related litigants out there) only wants people to comply with the GPL, and will settle once the defendant agrees to do so (as opposed to extorting money out of the defendants)?
I am pleased that this got settled quickly and in a manner that supports the GPL.
Kudos to the FSF for going for what's right rather than what's rich.
Ditto. Credit where credit is due.
And kudos to Cisco for supporting the GPL in the end, even if a few hard-headed managers had to get larted.
Disclaimer: I am a supporter of the GPL, but I am not a friend of the FSF and although I am a Cisco employee, I do not write for Cisco.
Cisco has some long-term work to do. (Score:5, Informative)
I wouldn't be so quick to hand out these kudos; the non-compliance can return. This, I suspect, is why Cisco needs a Free Software Director who regularly reports back to the FSF. As the FSF's Compliance Engineer Brett Smith pointed out in 2008 [fsf.org], "Despite our best efforts, Cisco seems unwilling to take the steps that are necessary to come into compliance and stay in compliance." (emphasis mine). Smith wrote that 5 years after the FSF learned that Cisco was not complying with the GPL and the FSF had been getting nowhere with its attempt to silently get Cisco to comply—what Smith called "a five-years-running game of Whack-a-Mole". Cisco and the FSF recently arrived at their agreement. It will take years to convince the public that Cisco is compliant and will remain compliant with those that treat Cisco so nicely as to share their work in whole with Cisco. "The end" you refer to is nowhere near here. Good will to correct wrongdoing on this scale takes time to sow.
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I'm sure that was the way that Cisco repaid the lawyer fees while getting a tax deduction out of it.
Unless I'm greatly mistaken they'd get to take a deduction on them anyhow, as a business expense.
If there are any tax advantages it's to FSF.
Re:This is the first time we've had to go to court (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should they? If you get what you want with out the risk of a trial
you are MUCH better off. Trials are risky,they do not always go as planned.
As for a cooperative solution , much better (and cheaper) than an advisarial one.
As for change , I hope not, they seem to be doing well.
Re:This is the first time we've had to go to court (Score:5, Informative)
Consider this (Score:2)
What about this happening in court? Cisco, a Networking equipment giant going to court against FSF/GNU could make some people like decision making admins mad. If they switch to BOFH mode, Cisco can go chap 11 in a year. There is a guy or bunch of guys deciding to buy million dollar equipment from them and not other brand you know. They are humans and they have their own philosophies. Entire GNU thing started because a large corporation refused to give specs of a printer. Yes, a printer in a lab started all.
Re:Consider this (Score:4, Informative)
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My father, an attorney for many years had variation on that.
A good lawyer goes to court and gets their client off. A great lawyer makes sure the client never goes to court in the first place.
Missing tags (Score:2)
They shouldn't. /. still doesn't have <sarcasm> tags. I thought I had been clear enough that my comment was tongue-in-cheek, but it sure looks like three moderators didn't pick up on it either.
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There is always the ~ tag that some poster was trying to get off the ground. 'course, to be compliant you have to
.
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I think everyone settles because the license is pretty clear. You don't like the license, then you don't ship the software.
Most companies are willing to made a deal because it's still cheaper than paying commercial royalties the old fashion way. If you can suffer the GNU viral license, you can also have a very quick time to market compared to writing everything from scratch. It's pretty obvious that many companies are willing to make sacrifices to get the benefits. Having worked at Cisco, in groups that use
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If you prefer the BSD style of freedom, which emphasizes the freedom of action of the developer, to the GPL style, which primarily aims at protecting end users, that is fine. Petty sniping of dubious historical accuracy, not so much.
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>It's better for corporations and better for software.
From where you sucked that wisdom?
Sure, it is better for stealing corporations.
But why would it be better for the rest of the corporations and software?
GPL'd code remains visible.
BSD gets stolen away.
>I know guys who have sold products with tons of BSD code built in with the copyright notices removed and they never get sued by the BSD folks.
Fine, if the BSD folks are fine with that, it is their 'business', not mine.
I will be happily 'stealing' thei
Re:Shakedown (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not real big on the GPL, but this is hardly a shakedown. More like repeatedly begging them to abide by the terms they agreed to, taking them to court, then settling before going to trial where more $$ could have be obtained from them.
FSF wanted Cisco to follow the agreement, not to suck money from the company.
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FSF wanted Cisco to follow the agreement, not to suck money from the company.
That seems clear. The big winner here is the GPL.
That is a good thing.
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I'm happy to license my personal stuff GPL, and if somebody wants to incorporate it into a larger project, they're welcome to contact me to make other arrangements. If I own the copyright, I can re-license it however I want.
Freedom (Score:5, Informative)
GNU is about freedom. Let's say I wanted to punch you in the face. I have the freedom to do so, unless you have the power to stop me. But trying to stop me is taking away my freedom to swing my fist, under your definition of freedom. Under my definition of freedom, your right not to get hit in the face outweighs my freedom to swing my fist wherever I like.
The GPL and the FSF help protect developers and end users from getting punched in the face by companies like Cisco. The GPL and the FSF help protect freedom, unless you define freedom as 'I get to do whatever the hell I want and screw the rest of you.'
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It seems BadAnalogyGuy has a second account.
I kid, I kid.
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I know, eh? AC below me explained it MUCH better...
Freedom to pirate? (Score:2)
Is that freedom? Because that is essentially what companies want to do to developers who release under public licenses: pirate their code. How is the freedom to pirate any kind of freedom?
If I want to kick you in the nuts, is it taking away my freedom if you stop me? This is no different. Nobody gets to do whatever they want unless they live as a hermit. You choose to live in society, you follow the rules. Enforcing the rules that everyone agrees to live by is not reducing freedom, it is increasing it.
Re:But THAT is what freedom is. (Score:5, Informative)
Free Software is about the software remaining free. It is actually a more descriptive term than saying "free software" when you mean you don't have to pay. The end result is more freedom for the user, if not the programmer. The user is more important.
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And I suppose you also think public domain is more "free" due to the fact that a company could take a public domain cola recipe, place it in a fancy red/white can, tell everyone they must have "Coke", but refuse to give it for free, even though they only modified it slightly, rather than inventing it?
Yeah, good call. I'll take your brand of freedom please; it sounds like we'd be onto a winner with that.
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In the last 10,000 years, science and engineering have done pretty well for enhancing themselves and have let anyone else do the same by not encumbering their algorithms in legal protections. Even with modern patents, the maximum duration of exclusivity over an algorithm is less than 20 years, after which anyone can muck around as they please for fun and profit.
Algorithms such as cola recipes do not need to be protected in the first place (our society demonstrates this by the fact that anyone can implement
Re:Fear (Score:5, Informative)
You mean this MIT license [opensource.org]? The one which says "do whatever you like, just don't sue and provide this notice"? The old Apache license [apache.org] is similar, and 2.0 [apache.org] even includes patent provisions.
Looks like the FUD already worked on you. Not all licenses are the same, nor are all OSS licenses viral.
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If you link to 100 MIT licensed libraries and 1 of those also links to a GPL licensed product, then you are screwed.
Screwed? You mean, you have to find the functionality elsewhere, or create it. All you have to do is link to something else and it's no longer a problem. And all you have to do is stop distributing the violating code to be in compliance, unless perhaps it can be shown that you violated the licensing agreement willfully.
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If you pay for QT, you get very good terms for redistribution and tailoring. If not, take what you get and be happy, or use WxWidgets instead. Really.
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I bought a student version of Borland C/C++ back in the day. It cost $400. One stipulation in the license was that I could only use the tools for educational purposes. Various things were explicitly called-out as prohibited. One was selling software that I built with the tools. I also could only demo my software under certain conditions. The cheapest version of Borland without such restrictions was $1000 at the time. This was the one without much support, no DB stuff (pre dBase, was that Fox), no extender (
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Yeah! GPL is biological! ah...
*Check my history, I'm pro-GPL.*
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Buying a license doesn't buy you legal safety. Look at Apple's license agreements for developers and tell me how "safe" you feel legally developing code for their platforms.
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The GPL is the only major license where this is even an issue, and then only if you distribute the software. Unless you're a software company, your "key IP assets" are safe.
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Re:Fear (Score:5, Informative)
First, find a new lawyer (assuming you're not just trolling).
Second, if your organization is allowing developers to throw in libraries from all over, without checking licenses, you've got some pretty big problems, and you're probably better off if they're using OSI-approved licenses (which at least allow commercial use). That still doesn't mean that the libraries are appropriate or of good quality, which is why I'd be a bit slower to worry about the legal issues.
Third, if you think commercial licenses are easier to work with, you need to read a few. It's very, very common to have little exclusions and conditions in them. There aren't all that many OSI-approved licenses, and you can come up with a list of approved ones for certain projects fairly easily. Besides, the commercial places employ nastier lawyers.
Fourth, there is no risk of having to publish source code, even if you've wrongly linked it with GPLed code and distributed it. That isn't a legal remedy, and no court will order you to do it.
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Patents is a fair point, but with the GPL it's not exactly ambiguous. If you use their code and distribute the result then you have to provide the source and license your code appropriately.
It's not that hard to figure out in most cases. It can be a bit ambiguous if you're linking in code without thinking about it, but it's not exactly that hard to find solutions.
Thanks for the FUD, shill (Score:2)
You can link to as many LGPL libraries as you like, so stop with the FUD, okay? A competent lawyer would never tell you to stay away from any of the licenses you mentioned, only a fool would make a blanket statement like that without understanding the specifics of the situation.
You can easily be 100% sure of the libraries you link to. If they are LGPL, MIT, or Apache, you have no problem. Whatever they link to has to be under the same license, or they could not release.
You are purposely spreading FUD, you d
It's a license, not a contract (Score:2, Interesting)
The GPL is a license, not a contract. Failure to comply with the GPL cannot result in having to give out source code that you wrote. On the other hand, it may result in a suit for infringement. In contrast, most commercial products are covered by contractual agreements that don't have that safety valve.
Licenses for closed-source commercial products are no better, just different. There are all kinds of restrictions on what and how you can distribute from the Microsoft Visual Studio tools. There are ter
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Linking to libraries means you have to follow the license--whatever that license is.
Plenty of proprietary binary-only software exists on Linux that makes "normal" syscalls (as per Linus' definition)
Using GNU utilities means you have to play by the GPL.
Using a proprietary toolkit means you have to play by that license, whether it's per-unit royalties or staying off of certain platforms.
You don't like the GPL? Don't use libraries licensed under it.
Free Software also means Freedom NOT to use/build again the so
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Linking to libraries doesn't mean shit, it's only if you are modifying the libraries that anything kicks in. I can develop closed source all day with GNU utilities and merrily put my work under my sole dictatorial copyright without ever thinking of invoking the GPL. As long as I'm not modifying GPLed code, I can do what I want.
It's idiots like you that give GCC a bad name. Developing using GNU tools does not mean you need to be creating a GPL licensed end product in any way, shape or form.
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Show these licenses (GPL, MIT, Apache, LGPL) to a lawyer and they will just say "stay the hell away from those".
Maybe if you have a lawyer who doesn't understand licensing or IP. On the other hand many companies have a good legal grasp of open source licensing and know the limitations and what is safe to integrate and what is not. I work for one such company, and much of our technology is based on open source and scientific software. You just have to know who to ask.
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Except for the clause in every proprietary software license agreement that says:
"We (the company) can change the terms of this agreement whenever we want, without your consent, or even wit
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I'd doubt they had read the summaries.
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Let me get this straight. You are saying:
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The "true cost" of actual damages is probably at or near zero. The legal costs incurred dealing with the problem will hopefully be more than covered by the donation agreed to in the settlement.
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Yes, an attorney could, but an attorney could also make the case that moonlight is the same thing as sunlight and that it's plenty good to pay up fines in whatever Zimbabwe's currency denomination of the moment is. That doesn't mean that it's going to be accepted or that it's a solid argument or that the argument is relevant, it just means that attorneys are good at arguing things.
Monetary damage isn't necessarily going to be limited to what a party charges, it's fairly common for attorneys to use the cost
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, by that logic, music given away as a promotion can be freely copied because it was obtained at zero cost to the recipient?
Re: (Score:2)
Or played for a public audience. Why don't we have the radio giving announcements before every damn song that "... recording is stealing..."? Huh? it is the same thing.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like Al Sharpton going after people, and settling for money.
If they'd come into compliance when they first got a nice letter from EFF they'd have been fine.
Instead they stonewalled. So EFF had to spend a lot of money and time to drag them to court.
They cost EFF a bunch of resources, so it's only appropriate that they make a donation to replenish them, keeping the EFF healthy and ready for the next fight.
If EFF runs SOLELY on free-will donations and doesn't go after additional funding in the settleme
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s/EFF/FSF/g;
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s/EFF/FSF/g;
Oops! Thanks!
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The word you're looking for is "rein". As in, the straps used to control a horse or other animal.
There is no monarchy at Cisco, so "reign" is not appropriate.
Why would that matter? (Score:2)
I'm not sure how that is relevant. Cisco multiply infringed on FSF's copyrights for software intended to grant everyone software freedom. This turned a would-be partner into an adversary in court. No matter how big the Cisco corporation is or what they were trying to do, they should not be allowed to deny their users software freedom. So I don't understand how we can know what Cisco was trying to do nor do I see how it matters.
Settling is common after examination. (Score:2)
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PP could be speaking for FSF