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Shane M. Coughlan | 1 Feb 2007 11:55
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Re: [Fwd: Re: Charging ($20) for GPL source?]

Matthew Flaschen wrote:
> Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
>> Arnoud makes a very good point here.  Free Software is about the freedom
>> it gives the user, not price.  There is no obligation to deliver Free
>> Software at zero cost, nor to provide the source code at zero cost
>> (though there is an obligation to provide the source code).
> 
> Again, C. Grobmeier said that, not me.
> Matthew Flaschen

Understood :)

Regards

Shane

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Shane M. Coughlan | 1 Feb 2007 14:20
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FSFE releases solution to increase legal strength of Free Software projects

Hi guys.  Today was a pretty exciting day for the FSFE Freedom Task
Force office.  We just announced the release of the Fiduciary Licence
Agreement (FLA) under both the GFDL and CC by-sa.

The FLA is a copyright assignment that provides a really simple route to
making sure projects can maintain copyright coherency.

The FLA can be used to either assign copyright to the FSFE Fiduciary
Programme or to another party.  It's designed to work in multiple legal
jurisdictions and to provide the closest thing we can get to a one-stop
copyright assignment.

The link to the webpage is: http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/fla/

Please tell projects you are involved with and let your friends know.
The official press release is below.  If you have any questions you can
just email me  :)

=======

FSFE releases solution to increase legal strength of Free Software projects

    FSFE releasing the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) under the
    terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL) and the
    Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike (CC by-sa) licence.

The Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) is a copyright assignment
carefully crafted for the specific needs of Free Software projects to
bundle their copyright in a single organisation or person. This will
enable projects to ensure their legal maintainability, including
(Continue reading)

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Iain Barker | 1 Feb 2007 18:20
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GPL violations continue by OEM manufacturers using Sigma systems SDK


Three years on, and still I am finding OEM customers of Sigma who are shipping product without GPL compliance...

I purchased a Galaxy IPTV last week, it is running uCLinux 2.4 and an embedded distro very similar to the
previous Sigma EM8500 SDK on my Liteon DVD player (which was also a GPL violation, see below).

No mention of the GPL license was provided with the Galaxy unit, no offer of source code etc.
http://www.galaxymetalgear.com/Products/3500IPTV.html

Although Sigma did release the GPL source for the kernel in their SDK via the UCLinux site "on behalf of their
customers", the OEMs are continuing to sell products which are in violation of GPL.

If you want to look at a similar firmware for confirmation of the Linux/GPL content, try here: http://www.galaxymetalgear.com/Firmware/galaxy_v2.0.10.41.zip

-----Original Message-----
From: legal-bounces <at> lists.gpl-violations.org
[mailto:legal-bounces <at> lists.gpl-violations.org]On Behalf Of Iain Barker
Sent: Friday, 18 March, 2005 11:05
To: legal <at> lists.gpl-violations.org
Subject: RE: Problems with KiSS (dvd player) firmware

Regarding the KiSS DVD player firmware:
This problem is common to multiple vendors who use the Sigma EM8500 chipset.

Sigma provide an GPL'd SDK to the OEM manufacturers such as Kiss, but some of the OEMs are failing to pass on
the GPL license with their products. The Sigma SDK includes Linux4TV, BusyBox, uCLinux and a few other GPL programs.

KiSS are actually one of the better behaved OEMs, at least they released a source code snapshot and included
the GPL license text in their documentation. For the product I have (Liteon LVD2001), the OEM refused to
issue source code and didn't even seem to be aware of the GPL.
(Continue reading)

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Joseph Heenan | 5 Feb 2007 20:29
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mvix gpl violation

Hi there,

mvix claim to ship a range of products based on uClinux:

http://www.mvixusa.com/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=36

Many of the firmware for mvix's devices are downloadable from this site.

However they refuse to supply any source code:

http://www.mvixusa.com/support/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=72

Within the product documentation supplied with the product (the 
MV-5000U) there is no mention at all made of the GPL status of parts of 
the firmware. Nor is there mention in any of the firmware downloads I've 
inspected.

Emailing mvix merely gets you either a link to the above knowledge base 
article, or the text of the article pasted into an email. They appear to 
believe this is sufficient to satisfy the terms of the GPL, which it 
clearly is not.

Could anyone suggest what the correct next step is please?

Thanks,

Joseph
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Sebastian Gottschall | 9 Feb 2007 13:33
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Various Buffalo GPL violations

Hello

I talked today with the Buffalo product management about the various GPL 
violations within the Buffalo product line. especially about the new 
WHR-HP-AG108
(Redboot, Linux Kernel etc.)
right now there is no GPL source offered in any way. Sourcecodes for 
other products are almost outdated or do not fit to the product itself.
The main problem with Buffalo here in Germany or UK is that everything 
is controlled by the Japanese headquarter and they do not care about 
anything. so the guy from Buffalo
aggreed with me that there must someone take a action against it, 
otherwise this situation will never change.
I hope GPL-Violations could do something to solve these problems or help 
to enforce Buffalo to release the sourcecodes for all GPL releated 
Buffalo products.
The main important products are Buffalo WHR-G54s, Buffalo WHR-HP-G54, 
Buffalo WHR-HP-AG108. for the first 2 products sourcecodes are offered 
but do not contain
the right sources (just reference sources from broadcom and not the 
buffalo sources and also outdated as hell). for the WHR-HP-AG108 which 
is a Atheros WiSOC based product
there is no sourcecode available or offered in any way.

regards,
Sebastian Gottschall
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Alexander Maryanovsky | 8 Feb 2007 22:00
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Jin vs. IChessU

Hi all,

You've probably heard about it (it was on slashdot, linux.com etc.),
but I didn't find a thread about it, so I thought I'd start one. The
story (well, my side of it) is summarized at
http://www.jinchess.com/ichessu. Other relevant articles are:

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/09/14/155222
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060906-7671.html
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/05/087224

Alexander (aka Sasha) Maryanovsky (Jin author).
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Florian Purucker | 12 Feb 2007 12:06

GPL violation between two companies and the customer

Hello,
I know of a product of a company A and this device is running software
covered by the GPL. The company does not include the source code and it
also does not include a written offer to get the source code.

I informed the company about this GPL violation and they told me they
would release the source code if they had it. The problem is the product
has been developed by another company B and they did not include the
source code. However, company B only developed the software for the
product and does not sell the product themselves. So for the customer,
company A is the distributer of software covered by the GPL and they are
in violation of the license because they do not deliver source code.

How could company A that actually sells the product enforce company B to
release the source code to them without losing the right to sell the
product because they have unwillingly already violated the GPL?

Is company B also in violation of the GPL because they do not release
the source code to company A?

I would really appreciate any information you could provide on this topic!

Florian
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Armijn Hemel | 12 Feb 2007 12:20
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Re: GPL violation between two companies and the customer

On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 12:06:35PM +0100, Florian Purucker wrote:

> Is company B also in violation of the GPL because they do not release
> the source code to company A?

Yes.

armijn

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  armijn <at> uulug.nl | http://www.uulug.nl/ | UULug: Utrecht Linux Users Group
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Shane M. Coughlan | 12 Feb 2007 12:28
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[issue93] GPL violation between two companies and the customer

Florian Purucker wrote:
> I informed the company about this GPL violation and they told me they
> would release the source code if they had it. The problem is the product
> has been developed by another company B and they did not include the
> source code. However, company B only developed the software for the
> product and does not sell the product themselves. So for the customer,
> company A is the distributer of software covered by the GPL and they are
> in violation of the license because they do not deliver source code.
<snip>
> Is company B also in violation of the GPL because they do not release
> the source code to company A?

The GNU GPL is a distribution licence.

Every party who distributes the code using the licence must obey the
terms of the licence.

In the case above CompanyB distributed the code to CompanyA without
obeying the licence, and CompanyA distributed the code onwards without
obeying the licence.

Both CompanyA and CompanyB are in violation of the terms of the GNU GPL
licence.  Both must come into compliance.

Regards

Shane

--

-- 
Shane Coughlan
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Arnoud Engelfriet | 12 Feb 2007 15:38
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Re: [issue93] GPL violation between two companies and the customer

Shane M. Coughlan wrote:
> Both CompanyA and CompanyB are in violation of the terms of the GNU GPL
> licence.  Both must come into compliance.

Certainly. The problem is that only the copyright holder(s) have
standing to enforce the terms. In this case, one of the licensees
wants to compel the other to adhere to the terms. This is not
possible given only the GPL, as the GPL is a contract(*) between
the original copyright holder(s) and each individual licensee.

This is why it's a good practice to have your suppliers sign something
that says "If I give you GPL software, I will also give you everything
you'll need to comply with the GPL once you redistribute the GPL
software. I will pay $BIGBUCKS if I fail to comply."

Arnoud
(*) In Europe.
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Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
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Gmane