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VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

sfconservancy.org

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Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#121

Post by s73v3r »

huhtenberg wrote: post #91
shmerl wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you know, they can stop being jerks and release sources for the code they derived from the GPLed one. > It's just that this GPL thing doesn't even register on their legal radar It should register. > Similarly any concerns raised by engineering are never taken seriously by the legal council. Not in any serious company to my experience. Being so lax on legal matters for such company shows very low level of their man…

> Being so lax on legal matters for such company shows very low level of their management's professionalism. Actually, no, it doesn't. It merely means that the management views GPL violations as a low-probability calculated risk. As in "we know that we can be in compliance, but we won't be wasting any resources on it until it's justified". It has nothing to do with the professionalism.

Actually, that entire statement shows they don't have any professionalism.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#122

Post by arfar »

paulhauggis wrote: post #108

The GNU license doesn't sound very "free" to me. It's strange that the owners of GNU code think that all additions to their code should rightly be released to the public (even if they never wrote the additions). The original code is still "free" for the world to use, so there really isn't anything being taken.

You and all of the "Free Software" world have different definitions on free. I'd recommend this[1] talk by Richard Stallman, it's pretty basic, but it gets the idea across well.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag1AKIl_2GM

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#123

Post by mgkimsal »

aros wrote: post #99
huhtenberg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being so lax on legal matters for such company shows very low level of their management's professionalism. Actually, no, it doesn't. It merely means that the management views GPL violations as a low-probability calculated risk. As in "we know that we can be in compliance, but we won't be wasting any resources on it until it's justified". It has nothing to do with the professionalism.

What a bizarre world we live in where willful violations of a legally binding license (a license which attempts to keep knowledge in the open) is considered nothing more than a "calculated risk."

Every time you speed on the freeway, you're willfully violating the law, and taking a calculated risk that you won't get caught. No?

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#124

Post by madez »

wil421 wrote: post #78
tbrownaw wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have an office in Germany: http://www.vmware.com/company/office_locations/office_german...

Thank you, I was trying to figure out if that matters or not.

National laws apply in the corresponding country in principle universally. If a company from country A sells something in country B then the sale is under the laws of country B.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#125

Post by [deleted] »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #57

LWN has a very clear explanation of just how clear-cut this is: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/635290/e501ce0264c182f4/ In particular, this isn't just a question of whether a kernel module is a derived work of the kernel. Apparently VMWare has copied code from the Linux kernel, with GPLed headers on top, and compiled that code directly into some of their code.

[deleted]

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#126

Post by dredmorbius »

thrillgore wrote: post #115
huhtenberg wrote: post #75

Busybox strikes again. I worked for a company that was on a receiving end of a similar GPL legal action (though not busybox-based and not from SF Conservancy). I'll tell you what will happen next. VMWare will (a) write a drop-in in-house replacement for busybox (b) they will show that busybox is not an principal part for ESXi and that it can be easily swapped for the in-house replacement. At this point they will rele…

> It's just that this GPL thing doesn't even register on their legal radar Then everyone in their legal department needs to be fired yesterday.

I think it's far more likely that huhtenberg is speaks of what he knows not.

There's no legal department of any note in Silicon Valley which isn't painfully aware of the GPL, nor has there been for the past 15 years, if not 25. They may have decided, as he somewhat more plausibly suggests, that the risks aren't significant. FSF have pursued GPL compliance cases in the past, and their goals are to increase the scope of Free Software -- getting either larger works released as open source or changes committed back. IIRC some major GCC enhancements came by way of this route.

Odds of seeking a cash settlement or other punitive award are slight. There's similarly little risk of customers being sued, though other VMWare partners could conceivably be. This doesn't do much for corporate goodwill in at least some quarters, and a lot of early GNU / Free Software folks are now in senior positions within the industry.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#127

Post by ChuckMcM »

hga wrote: post #116
ChuckMcM wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be an interesting result. To my knowledge the GPL (any version) hasn't actually been litigated to the point of a published decision (would love to hear that it had). That said, (and continuing with my possibly incorrect assumption that the GPL hasn't been litigated) if it does get decided that this remedy can be enforced by the license holders through the court, I expect it will create the largest software…

" The business risk would become too great that they might be litigated by a rival into inoperation. " Only the owners of a copyright have standing to sue, so I think the complete version of your concept fails unless, like in this case, the copyrights are held by many people instead of being assigned to one person or organization. I also can't imagine that a lot of companies haven't considered this risk, it hardly ma…

I don't disagree that only people with an ownership right in the copyright have standing, but I note that this has been worked around by a variety of means. The poster child being people like Prenda Law who used dubious techniques to get just enough copyright ownership on something (in their case porn) to sue. Also, as many have noted and some have experienced, at least in the US it is pretty easy to get sued whether or not the case has merit, and ignoring it results not in it being dismissed because of lack of standing, but a judgement against you by default.

This is somewhat moot if the litigation happens in Germany of course.

In contrast to camperman's comment, the copyright issue is first determined as a matter of law (its instructive to see the Groklaw archives on this with regards to SCO) and then if the copyright is valid then the question of the license comes up. And party A will say "That wasn't what I meant" and party B will say "But this is what it says" and for each of the clauses and sentences in the GPL a discussion will be had on what it says versus what it means. And finally if what it means is something that can be legally enforced[1]. A good example of that was the AT&T versus UC Regents suit over BSD where the BSD license and the AT&T Unix licenses were extensively examined.

[1] You could write a shrink wrap contract that said "By opening this package you agree to give me all your future income." which is clear what it says and what it means, but you would be hard pressed find a court willing to enforce those terms with that contract.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#128

Post by mentat »

huhtenberg wrote: post #75

Busybox strikes again. I worked for a company that was on a receiving end of a similar GPL legal action (though not busybox-based and not from SF Conservancy). I'll tell you what will happen next. VMWare will (a) write a drop-in in-house replacement for busybox (b) they will show that busybox is not an principal part for ESXi and that it can be easily swapped for the in-house replacement. At this point they will rele…

Any large company is very aware of GPL or else they're incompetent. Having worked at several companies I can assure you it's on their radar. If they're not compliant, it's a choice.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#129

Post by belorn »

[deleted] wrote: post #125
JoshTriplett wrote: post #57

LWN has a very clear explanation of just how clear-cut this is: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/635290/e501ce0264c182f4/ In particular, this isn't just a question of whether a kernel module is a derived work of the kernel. Apparently VMWare has copied code from the Linux kernel, with GPLed headers on top, and compiled that code directly into some of their code.

[deleted]

Wait, Microsoft is distributing and loading GPL'ed kernel modules for windows? I did not even know windows kernel had modules, and even less so that they distribute and use third-party developed gplv2 modules.

Are Microsoft shipping this with windows 7, windows 8, or windows server 2012, and is there a list somewhere for the shipped modules?

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#130

Post by sswaner »

I support Hellwig and the Conservancy in their claim, but I see an unfortunate consequence: This further hinders corporate adoption of open source software.

This lawsuit reinforce the corporate legal mindset that "use of open source invites litigation...".

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