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VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

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Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#261

Post by hugoroy »

maxerickson wrote: post #257
bonzini wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do not get a license, so they couldn't even legally download the new copy. It's the same as downloading pirated Windows (except that when downloading pirated Windows the hosting site shares the blame with the downloader, of course).

Why does only section 4 apply and not section 6? Is there case law resolving the situation, or are you giving your interpretation, or ...?

All sections apply. It's just that the original comment misunderstood what section 6 says. This is the only way to read section 6 coherently with section 4 and the rest of the license.

Sure, it's an interpretation.

[edit] the point is: nowhere as clear as the original comment expresses.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#263

Post by bonzini »

hugoroy wrote: post #260
bonzini wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do not get a license, so they couldn't even legally download the new copy. It's the same as downloading pirated Windows (except that when downloading pirated Windows the hosting site shares the blame with the downloader, of course).

They could still download a new copy, but they would not have the right to modify, reproduce and distribute that copy.

As far as I know, without a license, you do not even have the right to make a copy (i.e. download) or use it.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#264

Post by cbetz »

chubot wrote: post #13

Good, I donated here: http://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-app...

I donated too. If you're sitting on the side lines: remember that that the Software Freedom Conservancy is a non-profit while VMware is multi-billion dollar corporate entity with very deep pockets and high-priced lawyers.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#265

Post by belorn »

Sanddancer wrote: post #224
rnovak wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From reading the linked article, it read to me like the complaint asserts that VMKernel itself is a violation of the GPL. If I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me, but these statements seems to point in this direction Conservancy discovered that VMware had failed to provide nor offer any source code for the version of BusyBox included in VMware's ESXi products But ESXi is not a purely open-source product; it also…

This sounds more like Oracle vs Google regarding Java, where VMWare, like Google, is stating that APIs are not copyrightable, and the SFC, like Oracle, is claiming that even those APIs are copyrightable.

I don't see the commonalities except that both are about copyright. Has there been any information that the kernel API is being claimed to be copyrighted, or header files, or are VMWare claiming that no copyrighted code has actually been distributed?

The above extract mention "substantial amount of kernel code". If that code is implemented algorithms, data structure or full kernel features, then this case has nothing in common with the core issue between Oracle and Google.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#266

Post by davidgerard »

stephengillie wrote: post #14

As a VMWare customer, this makes me consider their ethics. If they're unethical, shouldn't we look into switching away from their product? I'm not aware of many competitors in their market space - Hyper-V certainly, but that's less of an option for some. Short of rearchitecting our service as a series of containers, what action can conscientious corporate leaders take?

The practical problem is that VMWare is the best by a ridiculous amount. The VM is better, the management tools are ridiculously better.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#267

Post by angersock »

shmerl wrote: post #232
angersock wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Comcast It's only unprofessional if you're bad at it .

It's unprofessional for normal companies. Unless you are talking about being a professional crook (and that's not what I'm talking about).

Look, "professional" is a lie told by successful people to keep dullards in line. There is the almighty dollar, the pursuit of that dollar, and what you have to do to attain that dollar--if you aren't in this to get paid as much as the market will bear and damn the consequences, you sir are the unprofessional one.

I get what you're saying, and I agree absolutely that it is a morally reprehensible thing to lie, cheat, or take the short-term approach to long-term problems. At the same time, you have to realize that anthropomorphizing companies is wrong. They are entities created to obtain profits, and any other reasoning about them is just going to cause you grief and distress. Accept that the system is made to generate non-corporeal profit-seeking amoral sociopaths, and move the fuck on.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#268

Post by vsl »

rnovak wrote: post #168
delsarto wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is as clear cut at all, but that makes it much more interesting. I left a comment there, but it bears some repeating I think ESXi's kernel does not bootstrap itself from Linux at all. There is no linux kernel as such [1] ESXi does reuse linux kernel drivers ... a lot of them. But the way this happens is through a well-defined API provided by (proprietary) vmkernel called vmkapi. What you are seeing i…

From reading the linked article, it read to me like the complaint asserts that VMKernel itself is a violation of the GPL. If I'm wrong, please feel free to correct me, but these statements seems to point in this direction Conservancy discovered that VMware had failed to provide nor offer any source code for the version of BusyBox included in VMware's ESXi products But ESXi is not a purely open-source product; it also…

> clearly a violation of the GPL.

It’s not clear, this really is an interesting case. From the description in the comments here, it seems that the GPL code from Linux, together with the code to interface with vmkernel is published, complying with GPL for that part.

My guess is that VMware considers vmkernel to be the operating system (which it is, albeit a minimalistic one, just the barebones hypervisor) and regard it as GPL code from Linux linking with the glue layer and the vmkernel system library. Which, if it provides some generic interface that the glue uses, arguably is.

And that - GPL code linking with proprietary system library - is an explicitly permitted exception in GPL: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#SystemLibraryExcept...

I am just guessing here, but seen like this, VMware’s position makes sense. I would be surprised if they all-out violated GPL, Linksys-style, to be honest, because some competent FLOSS folks work(ed) there.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#269

Post by shmerl »

angersock wrote: post #267
shmerl wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unprofessional for normal companies. Unless you are talking about being a professional crook (and that's not what I'm talking about).

Look, "professional" is a lie told by successful people to keep dullards in line. There is the almighty dollar, the pursuit of that dollar, and what you have to do to attain that dollar--if you aren't in this to get paid as much as the market will bear and damn the consequences, you sir are the unprofessional one. I get what you're saying, and I agree absolutely that it is a morally reprehensible thing to lie, cheat,…

> They are entities created to obtain profits

No. It's a fake logic often used to excuse of kind of crooked behavior. This doesn't fly. Crooks are crooks, whether they are a company or not. Companies have those who drive them. If those people at the head can't control their own companies not to be crooks - too bad for them, they bear the responsibility.

Re: VMWare Taken to Court Over GPL Violation

#270

Post by DannyBee »

hugoroy wrote: post #249
DannyBee wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, no, it doesn't in the case of GPLv2 code (which is what we are talking about). See my other comment. The second they came back in compliance, they could redownload the exact source they copied, from wherever they got it, and they'd have a fresh, brand new license, with no problems. GPLv3 fixed this "loophole". In fact, you can see what others have attempted (and failed) to do to try to prevent this "loophole"…

You're making this "loophole" up. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9156539

No, i'm not. Shocking: heavy GNU contributor doesn't like this viewpoint :)
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