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BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

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Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#41

Post by luso_brazilian »

antocv wrote: post #24

Has anyone ever seen GPL being encorced in any country? Wont this end with BWM uploading a tar.gz of a kernel found on kernel.org and call it a good working day? Have seen it happen too many times, and in most countries the user has no claim on the license/copyright. So unless I contributed/own some copyright found in exact Linux kernel version/other software used by a distributor, and buy their stuff, there is zilch…

Yes, and actually on BMW home country, Germany. The summary can be read at this old Slashdot submission [1] from 2005 but the gist of it is that

> Harald Welte of the netfilter/iptables core team sought to enjoin Sitecom from distributing its WL-122 router, which used netfilter's GPL'd code, without also providing the source code and a copy of the GPL, as that license requires

and

> The Munich Court granted Welte a preliminary injunction [2] and then upheld that injunction [3][4]

I believe there are other instances of GPL being upheld in courts around the world and this one should be only one of many examples.

GPL is not even necessary in these cases, in the absence of the (GP) license it reverts to the default copyright rules, with all rights of copy and distribution being at the hands of the copyright holders (save for Fair use and other exceptions).

A company that would try to argue that GPL is not a valid license in court would actually be admitting in court that they are distributing the software without a license from the copyright holders all along.

[1] Munich Court Again Enforces GPL: http://news.slashdot.org/story/05/04/14/2024258/munich-court...

[2] Preliminary injunction: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/15/1649250&tid=...

[3] Injunction upheld: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/07/23/1558219&tid=...

[4] Court's decision in English (pdf): http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_munich_gpl.pdf

Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#42

Post by tw04 »

sudhirj wrote: post #21

Is it a violation if they don't modify Linux itself? So if I make a device that runs Linux and my application binary, am I required to make my application code public?

You wouldn't need to release the source to the app, just the underlying linux bits that are covered by GPL.

Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#44

Post by mcguire »

pigpaws wrote: post #13
jackhack wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I don't think this is about 'kindness.' This is about BMW, a commercial entity, respecting the legal rights of the property creators as owners. The license agreement is clear, and certain actions must take place if BMW chooses to benefit from use of the software. BMW is free to NOT use the software if they feel these restrictions are too severe. Or am I missing something?

the way I read its is that no, BMW is NOT legally required to release it as it is in a proprietary piece of HW, and releasing the code could thus cause harm to their business. and while they ARE using it for 'gain', no one can prove that they were HARMED or had a loss of income or even IP (outside of copyright) by their (BMW's) use of such as it is essentially 'free' in that no money or barter items were exchanged. T…

Your reading is incorrect. BMW is distributing hardware and software, and is possibly in violation of the license agreement that allows them to use that software.

Their only possible defense is to assert that they are not using GPL'd software.

Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#45

Post by fauria »

Harald Welte founded gpl-violations (http://gpl-violations.org/about/) 12 years ago. The have been offline for some time, but it looks like they plan to continue with their activities this year: "Actual GPL enforcement activity is expected to resume at some point in 2016." Maybe they can help sorting this out.

Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#46

Post by godzillabrennus »

castis wrote: post #38

What is the worst-case scenario for an entity that refuses to comply?

I'm not a lawyer but I'd expect that if they lose in court they stand to be liable for damages that will far exceed compliance costs. It's in their best interest to just work toward compliance now.

Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#47

Post by godzillabrennus »

cookiecaper wrote: post #19
jwildeboer wrote: post #2

History has proven over and over again that this kind of public shame and blame approach doesn't help in any way, quite the opposite. Hand this over to the Free Software Conservancy or the SFLC. And that should have been the first step. Now that the bridges are burning, BMW will be far less open to civil discussion and cooperative solutions. Well done. #sarcasm

I disagree. The fact is that large companies like this are never open to "civil discourse and cooperative solutions" when it comes to copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property matters. BMW will see no reason to comply with the GPL. The only thing a big company responds to on such issues, other than bona fide legal action, is negative press. I think it'll be difficult to manufacture some over the technicali…

Post your story online and use something like thunderclap to get more awareness through your network.

Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#48

Post by davidgerard »

antocv wrote: post #24

Has anyone ever seen GPL being encorced in any country? Wont this end with BWM uploading a tar.gz of a kernel found on kernel.org and call it a good working day? Have seen it happen too many times, and in most countries the user has no claim on the license/copyright. So unless I contributed/own some copyright found in exact Linux kernel version/other software used by a distributor, and buy their stuff, there is zilch…

> Has anyone ever seen GPL being encorced in any country?

... yes? Lots and lots.

There's a prominent case involving VMware versus Christoph Hellwig on right now: http://laforge.gnumonks.org/blog/20160225-vmware-gpl/

One manufacturer violation ended up with Busybox/SFC awarded a pile of the violating televisions ... http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2010/08/court-...

Re: BMW Australia Refusing to Comply with Terms of GNU Public License

#49

Post by throwaway125 »

sudhirj wrote: post #21

Is it a violation if they don't modify Linux itself? So if I make a device that runs Linux and my application binary, am I required to make my application code public?

You are not required to make your application public as it is not considered a derivative of the linux kernel. If you distribute the device you are required to provide your customers with the source code to the running linux kernel.

The exact details depend on multiple factors (are you linking to libraries? Are they considered system libraries?) and if you are actually thinking of doing this you should invest some time in investigating this, and probably in consulting a lawyer.

Note that this is all based on my layman's understanding of the law and the license, and I'm definitely not a lawyer.

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