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It's worth noting that there have been some high-profile cases of legal action being taken against GPL violators, such as the BusyBox lawsuit in 2007, which res

It's worth noting that there have been some high-profile cases of legal action being taken against GPL violators, such as the BusyBox lawsuit in 2007, which resulted in a settlement requiring the defendant to comply with the GPL and pay damages. However, many GPL violations are resolved through non-legal means, such as negotiating a license agreement or reaching a settlement outside of court. But likely this will just cause minor reputational damage among HN-types and have no real consequences.

zoobab 4y ago
I was maintaining a uClinux router distro back in 2003, one of the router in our list ended up in court for the first legal case for GPL violation in Germany: https://isl3893.sourceforge.net/ https://isl3893.sourceforge.net/ "17 apr 2004 - GPL testing in court by the Netfilter/Iptables team, due to refuse to give source code of the Sitecom WL-122 (isl3893 based!). In the same time, some source code has appeared on the webserver of Sitecom."
judge2020 4y ago
> However, many GPL violations are resolved through non-legal means, such as negotiating a license agreement or reaching a settlement outside of court. Have any actually been decided by the court?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- throwwwaway69 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_license_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_license_litigation
bacchusracine 4y ago
>many GPL violations are resolved through non-legal means, such as negotiating a license agreement or reaching a settlement outside of court. And IMHO this is killing the license. Companies are doing the calculations and determining that by the time they get caught they can just negotiate at best and at worst just ignore it and drag things out until it realistically no longer matters. Without teeth no one will follow their obligations.
- kube-system 4y ago
  This is just the way the legal business works normally. 95% of civil cases settle before trial because lawyers know the law, don't need to go to court to know what is going to happen, and handle it more efficiently between themselves.
  - scotty79 4y ago
    Only in US and UK and such. Anywhere else it would indicate a severe pathology of justice system.
    - vkou 4y ago
      Why? Settling out-of-court is a win-win for everyone. If it weren't a win for both sides, the side that feels like it got the short end of the stick would opt for court.
    - dmoy 4y ago
      On the other hand you have Brazil, where there's like 1 active lawsuit for every two people in the country.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      The fact that people are able to remediate disputes without resorting to escalation indicates a high level of maturity of the legal system and legal profession. Third party remediation is a result of a failure of both parties to work out a solution amongst themselves. A legal system where both parties know and agree on the law is a success, not a failure.
      - scotty79 4y ago
        By analogy if people manage their own illnesses without engaging health service should be a testament to the level of maturity of health services in USA.
        4y ago
Torifyme12 4y ago
I mean, look at GRSec, if they can get away with it, anyone can.
- jraph 4y ago
  What can they get away with? IIRC they redistribute the source to their users, so the GPL is respected. The GPL doesn't force you to make your modifications public or available to the original authors (that would be non-free), only that your users should have access to the modifications, also under GPL. They surely do something like Red Hat that says in a contract you lose access to the GRSecurity patch¹ as a user if you publicly redistribute the source. ¹: (edit: lose access to further updates)
  - snuxoll 4y ago
    > They surely do something like Red Hat that says in a contract you lose access to the GRSecurity patch as a user if you publicly redistribute the source. GPL 2.0 > 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. Red Hat prohibits you from redistributing their binary packages, and that's well within the rights of the GPL as it attached to the source with the only requirement on binaries being that the GPL'd source code be made available upon request. Before the CentOS rebase, they went a step further and you could just download SRPMs right off their FTP server without even being a paying customer. In the case of GRSecurity, in their FAQ [https://grsecurity.net/faq https://grsecurity.net/faq] they even acknowledge that their customers have a right to share the patches. Q: Does grsecurity have a free version for evaluation only? A: Grsecurity fully complies with the license of the Linux kernel, the GPLv2. Since grsecurity is delivered as a source code patch, it is not possible under the terms of the GPL to offer a free version under an actual restriction that it be used only for evaluation purposes. Any customer receiving a grsecurity patch receives all the GPL-granted rights and responsibilities, including the right to redistribute patches in their possession or even to sell them to others.
criddell 4y ago
> But likely this will just cause minor reputational damage among HN-types and have no real consequences. I think so too. Onyx has been in violation of the GPL for a few years now and nothing is happening. Their products are often recommended on HN so the reputational damage even here is likely to be minimal. > https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_using_recent_antichina_movement_as_excuse_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...
- Kye 4y ago
  That's just another reminder that HN is a big place with different crowds who don't necessarily intersect or interact on the same topics. I've been a regular reader of and poster on HN for over 10 years and have never heard of this company.
  - criddell 4y ago
    Yep. That's why the reputational damage here isn't likely to be pretty minimal.
    - criddell 4y ago
      s/isn’t/is
- tarotuser 4y ago
  Onyx is a Chinese company. Naturally, they don't recognize FLOSS or commercial licenses originating from European Union or USA. The catch here would be is to file grievances against major distributors (Amazon, Ebay) and to prevent shipment here until they comply and pay up.
tarotuser 4y ago
Until FLOSS stewards start suing for the maximum damages permitted by law ($135k/violation) and make these company-ending events, FLOSS will be seen as a grab-n-go for anyone to pilfer, abuse, and sell as their own. I completely understand why FLOSS people wouldn't want to go after individuals misunderstanding a license. And that's also not at all what I'm talking about. LEGO et al have been around for decades, piles of lawyers, heavy handed trademark letters from their lawyers.... but end up doing fuckall with FLOSS folks. Think if the tables were turned - and you accurately modeled every LEGO brick and allowed sending to 3d printers to make custom bricks. Just how FAST would they shut that down? Oh, and this is hypocritical as ever: https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-play/ https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-p...
- em-bee 4y ago
  Think if the tables were turned - and you accurately modeled every LEGO brick and allowed sending to 3d printers to make custom bricks. Just how FAST would they shut that down? LEGO brick patents have already expired years ago and there exists plenty of alternate producers of LEGO compatible bricks. but yes, LEGO is trying every trick in the book to stop alternate brands from selling their products. i disagree however that suing for maximum damage is helpful to GPL software. it only instills fear in companies wanting to use it because it increases the risk. i believe a good will approach to help companies with compliance is better, only suing when companies refuse to comply.
  - tarotuser 4y ago
    > i disagree however that suing for maximum damage is helpful to GPL software. it only instills fear in companies wanting to use it because it increases the risk. And for some reason, a company with questionable EULAs, illegal in many jurisdiction's terms, and hundreds of pages of dense legalese doesn't seem to scare any of these companies away. And many FLOSS licenses are written in plain language to easily understand what you can and cant do. These companies aren't doing an accident - its intentional, ongoing, and continual malfeasance BECAUSE there is no real punishment. At best, they'll have to "comply". (And you know, FLOSS is always bemoaning no money.... well, here's a way to fund it) > i believe a good will approach to help companies with compliance is better, only suing when companies refuse to comply. You can disagree with me all you want. All I ask is "how does it look when the tables are turned"? And we have a rather nice answer - https://www.bsa.org/ https://www.bsa.org/ and https://www.siia.net/ https://www.siia.net/ The business software alliance and Software & Information Industry Association are utterly dictatorial about intentional copyright violations, and also very harsh about accidental violations. You can do further research on case studies of places that were called out for pirated software, and how many millions of dollars they had to pay in fines and "fixing proper licenses". Until FLOSS starts doing tit-for-tat (the best game theory decision in these kinds of things), we're going to keep seeeing companies treating FLOSS as their own personal loot-crate with little to no punishment for intentionally doing wrong.
pabs3 4y ago
Conservancy v Vizio being the current on-going one, this time they are suing for compliance as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL, rather than copyright holder: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html Sounds like John Deere might also need to come into compliance: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-violations/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-vi...
dragonwriter 4y ago
> However, many GPL violations are resolved through non-legal means, such as negotiating a license agreement or reaching a settlement outside of court. A legally binding agreement (especially one to settle active litigation) is a very odd thing to describe as “non-legal means”.
m463 4y ago
I don't know, the venn diagram of HN-types and Lego-types probably overlaps quite a bit. :)

zoobab 4y ago

I was maintaining a uClinux router distro back in 2003, one of the router in our list ended up in court for the first legal case for GPL violation in Germany: https://isl3893.sourceforge.net/ https://isl3893.sourceforge.net/ "17 apr 2004 - GPL testing in court by the Netfilter/Iptables team, due to refuse to give source code of the Sitecom WL-122 (isl3893 based!). In the same time, some source code has appeared on the webserver of Sitecom."

judge2020 4y ago

> However, many GPL violations are resolved through non-legal means, such as negotiating a license agreement or reaching a settlement outside of court. Have any actually been decided by the court?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwwwaway69 4y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_license_litigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_license_litigation

bacchusracine 4y ago

>many GPL violations are resolved through non-legal means, such as negotiating a license agreement or reaching a settlement outside of court. And IMHO this is killing the license. Companies are doing the calculations and determining that by the time they get caught they can just negotiate at best and at worst just ignore it and drag things out until it realistically no longer matters. Without teeth no one will follow their obligations.

kube-system 4y ago
This is just the way the legal business works normally. 95% of civil cases settle before trial because lawyers know the law, don't need to go to court to know what is going to happen, and handle it more efficiently between themselves.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Only in US and UK and such. Anywhere else it would indicate a severe pathology of justice system.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Why? Settling out-of-court is a win-win for everyone. If it weren't a win for both sides, the side that feels like it got the short end of the stick would opt for court.
  - dmoy 4y ago
    On the other hand you have Brazil, where there's like 1 active lawsuit for every two people in the country.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    The fact that people are able to remediate disputes without resorting to escalation indicates a high level of maturity of the legal system and legal profession. Third party remediation is a result of a failure of both parties to work out a solution amongst themselves. A legal system where both parties know and agree on the law is a success, not a failure.
    - scotty79 4y ago
      By analogy if people manage their own illnesses without engaging health service should be a testament to the level of maturity of health services in USA.
      - 4y ago

Torifyme12 4y ago

I mean, look at GRSec, if they can get away with it, anyone can.

jraph 4y ago
What can they get away with? IIRC they redistribute the source to their users, so the GPL is respected. The GPL doesn't force you to make your modifications public or available to the original authors (that would be non-free), only that your users should have access to the modifications, also under GPL. They surely do something like Red Hat that says in a contract you lose access to the GRSecurity patch¹ as a user if you publicly redistribute the source. ¹: (edit: lose access to further updates)
- snuxoll 4y ago
  > They surely do something like Red Hat that says in a contract you lose access to the GRSecurity patch as a user if you publicly redistribute the source. GPL 2.0 > 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. Red Hat prohibits you from redistributing their binary packages, and that's well within the rights of the GPL as it attached to the source with the only requirement on binaries being that the GPL'd source code be made available upon request. Before the CentOS rebase, they went a step further and you could just download SRPMs right off their FTP server without even being a paying customer. In the case of GRSecurity, in their FAQ [https://grsecurity.net/faq https://grsecurity.net/faq] they even acknowledge that their customers have a right to share the patches. Q: Does grsecurity have a free version for evaluation only? A: Grsecurity fully complies with the license of the Linux kernel, the GPLv2. Since grsecurity is delivered as a source code patch, it is not possible under the terms of the GPL to offer a free version under an actual restriction that it be used only for evaluation purposes. Any customer receiving a grsecurity patch receives all the GPL-granted rights and responsibilities, including the right to redistribute patches in their possession or even to sell them to others.

criddell 4y ago

> But likely this will just cause minor reputational damage among HN-types and have no real consequences. I think so too. Onyx has been in violation of the GPL for a few years now and nothing is happening. Their products are often recommended on HN so the reputational damage even here is likely to be minimal. > https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_using_recent_antichina_movement_as_excuse_to/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Onyx_Boox/comments/hsn7kx/onyx_usin...

Kye 4y ago
That's just another reminder that HN is a big place with different crowds who don't necessarily intersect or interact on the same topics. I've been a regular reader of and poster on HN for over 10 years and have never heard of this company.
- criddell 4y ago
  Yep. That's why the reputational damage here isn't likely to be pretty minimal.
  - criddell 4y ago
    s/isn’t/is
tarotuser 4y ago
Onyx is a Chinese company. Naturally, they don't recognize FLOSS or commercial licenses originating from European Union or USA. The catch here would be is to file grievances against major distributors (Amazon, Ebay) and to prevent shipment here until they comply and pay up.

tarotuser 4y ago

Until FLOSS stewards start suing for the maximum damages permitted by law ($135k/violation) and make these company-ending events, FLOSS will be seen as a grab-n-go for anyone to pilfer, abuse, and sell as their own. I completely understand why FLOSS people wouldn't want to go after individuals misunderstanding a license. And that's also not at all what I'm talking about. LEGO et al have been around for decades, piles of lawyers, heavy handed trademark letters from their lawyers.... but end up doing fuckall with FLOSS folks. Think if the tables were turned - and you accurately modeled every LEGO brick and allowed sending to 3d printers to make custom bricks. Just how FAST would they shut that down? Oh, and this is hypocritical as ever: https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-play/ https://www.lego.com/en-us/legal/notices-and-policies/fair-p...

em-bee 4y ago
Think if the tables were turned - and you accurately modeled every LEGO brick and allowed sending to 3d printers to make custom bricks. Just how FAST would they shut that down? LEGO brick patents have already expired years ago and there exists plenty of alternate producers of LEGO compatible bricks. but yes, LEGO is trying every trick in the book to stop alternate brands from selling their products. i disagree however that suing for maximum damage is helpful to GPL software. it only instills fear in companies wanting to use it because it increases the risk. i believe a good will approach to help companies with compliance is better, only suing when companies refuse to comply.
- tarotuser 4y ago
  > i disagree however that suing for maximum damage is helpful to GPL software. it only instills fear in companies wanting to use it because it increases the risk. And for some reason, a company with questionable EULAs, illegal in many jurisdiction's terms, and hundreds of pages of dense legalese doesn't seem to scare any of these companies away. And many FLOSS licenses are written in plain language to easily understand what you can and cant do. These companies aren't doing an accident - its intentional, ongoing, and continual malfeasance BECAUSE there is no real punishment. At best, they'll have to "comply". (And you know, FLOSS is always bemoaning no money.... well, here's a way to fund it) > i believe a good will approach to help companies with compliance is better, only suing when companies refuse to comply. You can disagree with me all you want. All I ask is "how does it look when the tables are turned"? And we have a rather nice answer - https://www.bsa.org/ https://www.bsa.org/ and https://www.siia.net/ https://www.siia.net/ The business software alliance and Software & Information Industry Association are utterly dictatorial about intentional copyright violations, and also very harsh about accidental violations. You can do further research on case studies of places that were called out for pirated software, and how many millions of dollars they had to pay in fines and "fixing proper licenses". Until FLOSS starts doing tit-for-tat (the best game theory decision in these kinds of things), we're going to keep seeeing companies treating FLOSS as their own personal loot-crate with little to no punishment for intentionally doing wrong.

pabs3 4y ago

Conservancy v Vizio being the current on-going one, this time they are suing for compliance as a third-party beneficiary of the GPL, rather than copyright holder: https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/vizio.html Sounds like John Deere might also need to come into compliance: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-violations/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2023/mar/16/john-deere-gpl-vi...

dragonwriter 4y ago

> However, many GPL violations are resolved through non-legal means, such as negotiating a license agreement or reaching a settlement outside of court. A legally binding agreement (especially one to settle active litigation) is a very odd thing to describe as “non-legal means”.

m463 4y ago

I don't know, the venn diagram of HN-types and Lego-types probably overlaps quite a bit. :)