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Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

sfconservancy.org

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Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#111

Post by IshKebab »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #35
IshKebab wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't see this succeeding because it would have some crazy implications in general.

Genuily asking: what?

It means anyone can sue for breach of contract if they are a beneficiary in some way, even if they aren't one of the parties of the contract. If you make a deal with the government to provide free school meals and then they underpay you so you stop providing the meals, now every parent can sue you. Doesn't sound quite right.

I think it would be better to fix this by having the GPL explicitly grant standing to anyone receiving it. Not a lawyer though so no idea if you can just do that. Maybe not.

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#112

Post by ameliaquining »

belorn wrote: post #15

This looks to be a major change in the legal strategy behind GPL. In the past the focus has been on copyright claims by copyright holders, but as recent cases has shown in Germany and France, those has faced some rather strange setbacks. Germany don't seem to want to recognize copyright holders that only contributed a part of a larger work, which is basically all copyright holders for larger FOSS projects. In France…

Do you have a link to the German case?

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#113

Post by franga2000 »

pabs3 wrote: post #95

I wonder if Kodi will be able to run on Vizio TVs if the lawsuit succeeds and all the code gets released and upstreamed.

That's rather unlikely. Even if you had all the source code, not just the GPL parts, and were able to build and package the firmware in a way the TV would be able to accept, they're probably using some form of build signing to prevent that.

But if you want to use Kodi, you likely already have some kind of media server, so something like Jellyfin/Emby/Plex wouldn't be too much more work and is definitely within the realm of possibility. SmartCast apps are just websites and Vizio gives you a companion JavaScript library for interacting with the TV and getting commands from the remote that could be bolted onto Jellyfin/whatever. Documentation is likely only available to big developers under an NDA, but the API is not exactly difficult to figure out (I can't give any further details due to an NDA completely urelated to Vizio :D)

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#114

Post by cjensen »

hbyouffav wrote: post #106
cjensen wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes absolutely. You would be redistributing the software with the TV. That said, I can't imagine anyone would actually file a lawsuit in a situation like this. More worrying is whether Costco and Walmart could be sued under this theory. Vizio sells very few TVs directly.

This comment is pretty much entirely wrong due to first sale considerations, as a neighbor comment points out. It’s also a good cautionary tale for understanding your legal obligations regarding software licensing from an Internet comment. For the purposes of only this context, in which we are deliberating who is infringing on the GPL software blah blah, Vizio sells all of their televisions directly. The act happens…

There is no "first sale" for a non-transferrable software license -- even when you get it as a part of a physical good. You are confusing licensing with copyright, which is a different thing entirely.

When the second sale occurs, the seller must still obey the terms of the software license, which means the seller must give the end-user a full license which includes the ability to demand the source.

If it were otherwise, the GPL would be meaningless. Instead of the many BusyBox lawsuits, the companies could have "sold" their boxes, "bought" them back, then had no GPL obligations.

Lastly, without the GPL you have no software license and have no right to run the software.

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#115

Post by webmaven »

IshKebab wrote: post #111
colejohnson66 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuily asking: what?

It means anyone can sue for breach of contract if they are a beneficiary in some way, even if they aren't one of the parties of the contract. If you make a deal with the government to provide free school meals and then they underpay you so you stop providing the meals, now every parent can sue you. Doesn't sound quite right. I think it would be better to fix this by having the GPL explicitly grant standing to anyone…

> It means anyone can sue for breach of contract if they are a beneficiary in some way, even if they aren't one of the parties of the contract. If you make a deal with the government to provide free school meals and then they underpay you so you stop providing the meals, now every parent can sue you. Doesn't sound quite right.

If you stop providing the meals due to the government's breach of contract, it seems pretty obvious to me that the court would either dismiss the case (possibly with prejudice) and direct the plaintiff to sue the appropriate party, or that the case would be suspended until you and/or the government are done suing each other pending the outcome(s) of the other case(s).

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#116

Post by Seirdy »

bluGill wrote: post #110
Seirdy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point of copyleft licenses is to make it hard to make proprietary software and easy to make free software. It sounds like they're working as intended. My understanding is that this suit is partly on the grounds of Visio not releasing modifications to copylefted code. The MPL and LGPL have the same requirements; is not being able to use LGPL, GPL, AGPL, MPL, or CeCILL-licensed software really harder than complianc…

A large amount of free software is developed by companies. If they stop it hurts us all.

Like I said, companies are free to use a more sustainable model that doesn't require artificial scarcity: they can provide services to reflect the fact that copies of software are not a scarce resource, while labor is.

It's not our duty to keep old business models alive. We shouldn't try to appease companies so they do what we like; they're the ones who should adapt to our needs.

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#117

Post by chillfox »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #103
JoshTriplett wrote: post #4

An especially novel aspect of this lawsuit, quoting the press release: > This approach makes it the first legal case that focuses on the rights of individual consumers as third-party beneficiaries of the GPL. > “That’s what makes this litigation unique and historic in terms of defending consumer rights,” says Karen M. Sandler, the organization’s executive director. In the past, GPL enforcement has been a cause of act…

Generally speaking, GPL can't be enforced by users due to selftermination clause. And when GPL terminates itself, you can't enforce it. For user enforcement we need a license that doesn't terminate itself. --- 8. Termination. You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rig…

I guess the interesting thing here is if they are willing to use that as an argument.

"You can't sue us because we don't have a license!"

I imagine that would make a following case by the actual copyright holders really easy to win.

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#118

Post by LukeShu »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #103
JoshTriplett wrote: post #4

An especially novel aspect of this lawsuit, quoting the press release: > This approach makes it the first legal case that focuses on the rights of individual consumers as third-party beneficiaries of the GPL. > “That’s what makes this litigation unique and historic in terms of defending consumer rights,” says Karen M. Sandler, the organization’s executive director. In the past, GPL enforcement has been a cause of act…

Generally speaking, GPL can't be enforced by users due to selftermination clause. And when GPL terminates itself, you can't enforce it. For user enforcement we need a license that doesn't terminate itself. --- 8. Termination. You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rig…

Note that for quite a while Conservancy has (and more recently[1] many other copyright holders have) publicly documented that they extend GPLv3's cure provision to their otherwise-GPLv2-licensed code.

There are kernel copyright holders who have not consented to this and when you violate the GPL your license to the parts of the code that they own is terminated per the vanilla GPLv2. But the copyrights which Conservancy represents have the cure provision.

[1]: discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16628301 (2018)

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#119

Post by jfrunyon »

pabs3 wrote: post #94
jfrunyon wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... and your point is? The Software Freedom Conservancy is a business which can do business in many states and be subject to the jurisdiction of courts in all of them, unlike an individual, who can be resident in only one state. (And even then, an individual could also sue in California if the event being sued over - like a purchase or an accident - occurred in California)

nitpick: the Software Freedom Conservancy is a charity, not a business.

Charities are a form of business. I didn't say they were for-profit.

Re: Software Freedom Conservancy files GPL lawsuit against Vizio

#120

Post by wizzwizz4 »

duskwuff wrote: post #83
squarefoot wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just nice, it would be a huge accomplishment. Imagine being able to resurrect (as in saving from a landfill) old tablets, phones and even smart TVs, or making new ones more usable and trustworthy by flashing a lighter OS that doesn't contain adware and spyware, and can be patched to solve bugs or implement new functions (including codecs) to give the product a longer life. Hardware manufacturers would absolutely…

I think you're overestimating developer ability/willingness. There's a lot of hardware out there which could in theory have third-party firmware built for it, but which hasn't because it's just too niche for anyone to have bothered, or because there's insufficient public documentation. Most smart TVs, for example, fall into both categories. There are simply too many models for a third-party firmware effort to take of…

I think you're underestimating the tenacity of hobbyists. Some people hack every device they own, then release the software they wrote to do so; it only takes one or two of these people to write the drivers for a few dozen devices, and then they all run Debian.
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