The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement • Hacker News Board

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#41

Post by akira2501 » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:33 AM UTC

gcp wrote: post #8

jlarocco wrote: post #5

Maybe I misunderstood, but I'm not seeing how this is bad. Sony wants to write a BusyBox that doesn't use BusyBox's license? What exactly is the problem? If they don't like the license isn't that the best approach they can take? "A couple of weeks ago, this page appeared on the elinux.org wiki. It's written by an engineer at Sony, and it's calling for contributions to rewriting Busybox. This would be entirely reasona…

This is bad because Busybox has copyright holders that actively enforce the GPL on their product. They're not asking for this because they dislike Busybox'es GPL license. They're asking for it because they know Busybox actually goes to court to enforce it, and asks for the other GPL products to have their license respected too. I'll spell it out more clearer: they want to get rid of Busybox, because its one of the on…

If it's about violations, or money, I can't strictly tell; it's one of those things that depends on who you talk to: http://lwn.net/Articles/475901/

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#42

Post by thristian » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:35 AM UTC

tibbon wrote: post #35

jlarocco wrote: post #5

Maybe I misunderstood, but I'm not seeing how this is bad. Sony wants to write a BusyBox that doesn't use BusyBox's license? What exactly is the problem? If they don't like the license isn't that the best approach they can take? "A couple of weeks ago, this page appeared on the elinux.org wiki. It's written by an engineer at Sony, and it's calling for contributions to rewriting Busybox. This would be entirely reasona…

Yea, isn't this pretty much what Linux and GNU did? They saw software with restrictive licensing that they wanted to use, so they re-wrote it completely and released it under a license that worked for them.

No, this is not what Linux and GNU did, because they rewrote all the software they wanted to use. The linked article accuses Sony of only wanting to rewrite the software that gets them caught, so they can continue ignoring the GPL obligations on the rest of the software they use.

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#43

Post by jevinskie » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:35 AM UTC

angersock wrote: post #38

gcp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad because Busybox has copyright holders that actively enforce the GPL on their product. They're not asking for this because they dislike Busybox'es GPL license. They're asking for it because they know Busybox actually goes to court to enforce it, and asks for the other GPL products to have their license respected too. I'll spell it out more clearer: they want to get rid of Busybox, because its one of the on…

So, if they switch to (say) a full BSD-licensed stack, what is the problem? They can use it for whatever, modify the code for whatever, and there shouldn't be any problems. Why is this a bad thing, other than that it weakens the importance of the GPL?

That would be fine but the article indicates that they want to continue to use other GPL code (like the Linux kernel) without complying with the GPL. Only Busybox copyright holders have been eager to prosecute violators - removing Busybox would let vendors violate the GPL with little practical consequences.

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#44

Post by angersock » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:36 AM UTC

thristian wrote: post #40

angersock wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if they switch to (say) a full BSD-licensed stack, what is the problem? They can use it for whatever, modify the code for whatever, and there shouldn't be any problems. Why is this a bad thing, other than that it weakens the importance of the GPL?

If they were going to switch to a full BSD-licensed stack, there would be no problem. They want to switch to a mostly-GPL stack, except for the one component that causes them to have to live up to their GPL obligations.

Ah, so, that's kind of a dick move. Thanks for the explanation!

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#45

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:36 AM UTC

angersock wrote: post #38

gcp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad because Busybox has copyright holders that actively enforce the GPL on their product. They're not asking for this because they dislike Busybox'es GPL license. They're asking for it because they know Busybox actually goes to court to enforce it, and asks for the other GPL products to have their license respected too. I'll spell it out more clearer: they want to get rid of Busybox, because its one of the on…

So, if they switch to (say) a full BSD-licensed stack, what is the problem? They can use it for whatever, modify the code for whatever, and there shouldn't be any problems. Why is this a bad thing, other than that it weakens the importance of the GPL?

[deleted]

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#46

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:36 AM UTC

thristian wrote: post #40

angersock wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if they switch to (say) a full BSD-licensed stack, what is the problem? They can use it for whatever, modify the code for whatever, and there shouldn't be any problems. Why is this a bad thing, other than that it weakens the importance of the GPL?

If they were going to switch to a full BSD-licensed stack, there would be no problem. They want to switch to a mostly-GPL stack, except for the one component that causes them to have to live up to their GPL obligations.

[deleted]

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#47

Post by thristian » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:37 AM UTC

fryguy wrote: post #33

So an analogy would be that Pirate Steve wants to put the entire criterion collection ( http://www.criterion.com/library ) on the pirate bay. However, he knows that Fox is really litigious about their movies, so he replaces all of their movies with garage remakes (like "Be Kind, Rewind") so that he can safely pirate the rest of the movies since the other motion picture studios are lazy. Is my analogy correct at all?…

That's the gist, yes.

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#48

Post by caf » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:41 AM UTC

azakai wrote: post #26

jlarocco wrote: post #5

Maybe I misunderstood, but I'm not seeing how this is bad. Sony wants to write a BusyBox that doesn't use BusyBox's license? What exactly is the problem? If they don't like the license isn't that the best approach they can take? "A couple of weeks ago, this page appeared on the elinux.org wiki. It's written by an engineer at Sony, and it's calling for contributions to rewriting Busybox. This would be entirely reasona…

> I'm also not sure I like the idea of using BusyBox as a backdoor to examine the rest of a product's source code. I didn't realize that was a condition of the GPL, but it makes me glad I've switched most of my projects over to the BSD and ISC licenses. This is based on one interpretation of the GPL: That if you violate the license, you lose the license to that software forever, including new versions of it, until yo…

But how can that prevent you from getting a new license to a new version of the software? How are those connected?

They're connected because some of the originally licensed copyrighted material still exists in the new version. You would get a clear license to any new material that you hadn't previously licensed (and hence hadn't violated the license of), but that's not very helpful.

Or how about a new version of the software that was rewritten from scratch, and has no code shared with the one you were temporarily in violation from?

If it doesn't contain any material that you'd previously violated the license of, then you would seem to be in the clear.

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#49

Post by mjg59 » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:44 AM UTC

akira2501 wrote: post #41

gcp wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is bad because Busybox has copyright holders that actively enforce the GPL on their product. They're not asking for this because they dislike Busybox'es GPL license. They're asking for it because they know Busybox actually goes to court to enforce it, and asks for the other GPL products to have their license respected too. I'll spell it out more clearer: they want to get rid of Busybox, because its one of the on…

If it's about violations, or money, I can't strictly tell; it's one of those things that depends on who you talk to: http://lwn.net/Articles/475901/

The SFC's a 501(c)(3), so any money from the suits goes back into supporting their associated projects or supporting other ongoing actions.

Re: The ongoing fight against GPL enforcement

#50

Post by mjg59 » Tue, Jan 31, 2012, 2:49 AM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #28

dman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is from the linked elinux page - "Busybox is arguably the most litigated piece of GPL software in the world. Unfortunately, it is unclear what the remedy should be when a GPL violation occurs with busybox. Litigants have sometimes requested remedies outside the scope of busybox itself, such as review authority over unrelated products, or right of refusal over non-busybox modules. This causes concern among chip v…

Chip vendors and suppliers could have concerns even if they are not violating the GPL. For instance, they may believe their modules contain important trade secrets. Given that, they might not want anyone they haven't approved to review the modules period.

The only code that they'll ever be obliged to release is code that's covered by licenses that already require them to release it, and if their trade secret containing modules aren't derived from GPLed works then it's not an issue. If they are, then getting rid of Busybox reduces the probability of a lawsuit - but shipping other GPLed code (like, say, the Linux kernel) means they're still vulnerable.