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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

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 reasonable if it were for technical reasons, but it's not - it's explicitly stated that companies are afraid that Busybox copyright holders may force them to comply with the licenses of software they ship. If you ship this Busybox replacement instead of the original Busybox you'll be safe from the SFC. You'll be able to violate licenses with impunity." Wait, didn't GNU and the GPL start off for the completely non-technical reason that Stallman didn't like the original license? 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.

lukeschlather 15y ago
The implication is that Sony is presently shipping software with Busybox and knowingly violating the licensing terms. If they rewrite Busybox in the interim they will be able to get away scot-free despite their years of flagrant copyright violation. Given the variety of devices Sony ships and their complete lack of respect for the GPL, their plan could very well work unless someone catches them red-handed. And the point is that the people who wrote Busybox don't want money if you're infringing their copyright - they just want to see exactly what you've done with their code, and get the chance to play with it. Which is pretty reasonable when you think about it.
- kryptiskt 15y ago
  Sony is presently shipping a lot of stuff with Busybox in, but they are not violating the license terms. Here you can download a zillion Sony-patched versions of Busybox to your hearts content: https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_tv.shtml https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_tv.shtml
  - CPlatypus 15y ago
    The "2010 and later" section is empty. I guess it's possible that they stopped building new products which use GPL code in 2009, but somehow it seems unlikely that they stopped updating or patching old ones at the same time. If it takes them two or more years to ship the source, after they're already shipping the binaries, are they in compliance?
    - earl 15y ago
      if you go here: https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/ https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/ you'll see other products such as webkit with updates in 2011
gravitronic 15y ago
The problem is that the rewrite is coming AFTER they've been shipping with busybox and already not complying with the license.
- fpgeek 15y ago
  Cite? (besides a wiki page that can be interpreted different ways)
gcp 15y ago
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 only things whose license they cannot violate with impunity.
- jlarocco 15y ago
  I'm still not seeing the problem. On one hand, if the license holders of the other infringing software don't care to enforce the license, why should anybody care? It makes no sense to me, but it's up to them. On the other hand, if Sony would rather write it themselves than abide by the GPL then I'm not seeing the problem there, either. Again, it makes no sense, but it's their decision.
  - gcp 15y ago
    On one hand, if the license holders of the other infringing software don't care to enforce the license, why should anybody care? It makes no sense to me, but it's up to them. Believe it or not, most free software developers aren't dying to spend their time and money to start a copyright lawsuit against Sony. That doesn't mean they're actually OK with their copyright and licenses being violated. Public shaming is often much more cost-effective. But if there's one company that doesn't give a rats ass, it's Sony. Most free software developers also don't register their copyright (unlike Sony) and so aren't entitled to those fantastically high statutory damages. They have to prove actual damages. For free software. Good luck.
    - anonymoushn 15y ago
      If there are GPL software developers who are having their licenses infringed and want to enforce, they can grant SFC the authority to enforce. I really don't see the problem here. On the other hand, more software that is not infected with a proprietary or copyleft license is always good.
toyg 15y ago
The problem is that, in many cases, busybox is the only program you can actually "see" and hence enforce the license on. Once that disappears, everything behind it becomes technically invisible; so you could use this "piratebox" plus other infringing software, and be safe. It's sad, really. I can see a future where a terminal program or command is embedded in the linux kernel and cannot be removed, only to force companies to stay honest.
twstws 15y ago
You have misunderstood. The current situation has Sony shipping devices running several/many different programs with GPL licenses. They don't want to provide their modified source code for these programs to their users, in violation of their obligations under the GPL. Most of the copyright holders of this code do not have the means to pursue an infringement case. Busybox is the exception. The SFC actively enforces the license for busybox. In addition, once you lose your right to use busybox as a consequence of a license violation, the SFL will let you ship it again only if you come into compliance on for all of the GPL code you ship. So they are making their own busybox as a way to continue to violate all the non-busybox GPL code they use. If you comply with the busybox licence, you can continue to violate the licence on all the other GPL code. But violating busybox means you have to comply with all of your GPL code. You never have to release your non GPL code.
- kryptiskt 15y ago
  > They don't want to provide their modified source code for these programs to their users, in violation of their obligations under the GPL. The fact that a Sony guy wants to build a non-GPL Busybox is not evidence of any Sony violations of the GPL, now or earlier. There is some radical jumping to conclusions here.
  - dman 15y ago
    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 vendors and suppliers."
    - fpgeek 15y ago
      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.
rcxdude 15y ago
the problem is that the GPL is still being violated (because linux and a host of other libraries and tools are still being used), but there's no longer a good tool to enforce it because most GPL copyright holders don't have the will or the means to pursue violators. Note that busybox is only used to obtain the source code of parts of the product for which source code is already required to be provided by the GPL or similar licenses. It's not used to get code which isn't covered by the GPL (although it could in principle be, or at least force the company in violation to choose between that and coming into compliance by removing all use of busybox)
azakai 15y ago
> 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 you get explicit permission from the author. The SFC then made a condition of granting permission to BusyBox, that the violator come into compliance regarding all other GPLed projects. But that interpretation is not a legal fact. Another interpretation - which seems much more reasonable to me, and was certainly the intention I had when I released GPL code myself - is that you lose the license when you violate it. But as the GPL states, you get a license when you download a new version of the software anyhow, so the problem goes away - unless you violate the GPL again. In other words, if you violate the GPL, you have no license to the code, but once you comply with it, you are fine. The former interpretation always struck me as bizarre: If you lost the license when you violated the GPL, surely you lost that license to that particular software. But how can that prevent you from getting a new license to a new version of the software? How are those connected? 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? Is the mere name enough? How about forks of the project? If any of this were what the GPL originally intended, you would think it would have been specified in some way. The much more reasonable interpretation is the second one: You lose the license to the concrete software you were given a license to before. Download a new version, get a new license. Stop violating the license, and you are ok.
- mjg59 15y ago
  That's certainly another plausible interpretation, but it's not one that the license authors appear to agree with - otherwise, the additional paragraph in GPLv3 wouldn't be necessary. Individual authors may obviously disagree and refuse to enforce the license in that manner, but it's something that you probably want to confirm with the copyright holders before relying on it. It's also not an argument that any of the defendants involved in the SFC lawsuits appear to have made.
  - 15y ago
tibbon 15y ago
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.
- thristian 15y ago
  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.
  - dedward 15y ago
    Thats how things work..... why would you spend time and money on something that is not likely to cause you damages? It is a calculated risk..... andnthey arent eliminating the risk, just reducing it.
    - thristian 15y ago
      If you honestly believe that it's acceptable to screw over your business partners (and the people who write the software that your business depends on are your partners, even if there's no monetary recompense involved) as much as you want up until you get caught, I'm not sure I can explain this in terms you'll understand.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

lukeschlather 15y ago

The implication is that Sony is presently shipping software with Busybox and knowingly violating the licensing terms. If they rewrite Busybox in the interim they will be able to get away scot-free despite their years of flagrant copyright violation. Given the variety of devices Sony ships and their complete lack of respect for the GPL, their plan could very well work unless someone catches them red-handed. And the point is that the people who wrote Busybox don't want money if you're infringing their copyright - they just want to see exactly what you've done with their code, and get the chance to play with it. Which is pretty reasonable when you think about it.

kryptiskt 15y ago
Sony is presently shipping a lot of stuff with Busybox in, but they are not violating the license terms. Here you can download a zillion Sony-patched versions of Busybox to your hearts content: https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_tv.shtml https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/source_tv.shtml
- CPlatypus 15y ago
  The "2010 and later" section is empty. I guess it's possible that they stopped building new products which use GPL code in 2009, but somehow it seems unlikely that they stopped updating or patching old ones at the same time. If it takes them two or more years to ship the source, after they're already shipping the binaries, are they in compliance?
  - earl 15y ago
    if you go here: https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/ https://products.sel.sony.com/opensource/ you'll see other products such as webkit with updates in 2011

gravitronic 15y ago

The problem is that the rewrite is coming AFTER they've been shipping with busybox and already not complying with the license.

fpgeek 15y ago
Cite? (besides a wiki page that can be interpreted different ways)

gcp 15y ago

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 only things whose license they cannot violate with impunity.

jlarocco 15y ago
I'm still not seeing the problem. On one hand, if the license holders of the other infringing software don't care to enforce the license, why should anybody care? It makes no sense to me, but it's up to them. On the other hand, if Sony would rather write it themselves than abide by the GPL then I'm not seeing the problem there, either. Again, it makes no sense, but it's their decision.
- gcp 15y ago
  On one hand, if the license holders of the other infringing software don't care to enforce the license, why should anybody care? It makes no sense to me, but it's up to them. Believe it or not, most free software developers aren't dying to spend their time and money to start a copyright lawsuit against Sony. That doesn't mean they're actually OK with their copyright and licenses being violated. Public shaming is often much more cost-effective. But if there's one company that doesn't give a rats ass, it's Sony. Most free software developers also don't register their copyright (unlike Sony) and so aren't entitled to those fantastically high statutory damages. They have to prove actual damages. For free software. Good luck.
  - anonymoushn 15y ago
    If there are GPL software developers who are having their licenses infringed and want to enforce, they can grant SFC the authority to enforce. I really don't see the problem here. On the other hand, more software that is not infected with a proprietary or copyleft license is always good.

toyg 15y ago

The problem is that, in many cases, busybox is the only program you can actually "see" and hence enforce the license on. Once that disappears, everything behind it becomes technically invisible; so you could use this "piratebox" plus other infringing software, and be safe. It's sad, really. I can see a future where a terminal program or command is embedded in the linux kernel and cannot be removed, only to force companies to stay honest.

twstws 15y ago

You have misunderstood. The current situation has Sony shipping devices running several/many different programs with GPL licenses. They don't want to provide their modified source code for these programs to their users, in violation of their obligations under the GPL. Most of the copyright holders of this code do not have the means to pursue an infringement case. Busybox is the exception. The SFC actively enforces the license for busybox. In addition, once you lose your right to use busybox as a consequence of a license violation, the SFL will let you ship it again only if you come into compliance on for all of the GPL code you ship. So they are making their own busybox as a way to continue to violate all the non-busybox GPL code they use. If you comply with the busybox licence, you can continue to violate the licence on all the other GPL code. But violating busybox means you have to comply with all of your GPL code. You never have to release your non GPL code.

kryptiskt 15y ago
> They don't want to provide their modified source code for these programs to their users, in violation of their obligations under the GPL. The fact that a Sony guy wants to build a non-GPL Busybox is not evidence of any Sony violations of the GPL, now or earlier. There is some radical jumping to conclusions here.
- dman 15y ago
  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 vendors and suppliers."
  - fpgeek 15y ago
    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.

rcxdude 15y ago

the problem is that the GPL is still being violated (because linux and a host of other libraries and tools are still being used), but there's no longer a good tool to enforce it because most GPL copyright holders don't have the will or the means to pursue violators. Note that busybox is only used to obtain the source code of parts of the product for which source code is already required to be provided by the GPL or similar licenses. It's not used to get code which isn't covered by the GPL (although it could in principle be, or at least force the company in violation to choose between that and coming into compliance by removing all use of busybox)

azakai 15y ago

> 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 you get explicit permission from the author. The SFC then made a condition of granting permission to BusyBox, that the violator come into compliance regarding all other GPLed projects. But that interpretation is not a legal fact. Another interpretation - which seems much more reasonable to me, and was certainly the intention I had when I released GPL code myself - is that you lose the license when you violate it. But as the GPL states, you get a license when you download a new version of the software anyhow, so the problem goes away - unless you violate the GPL again. In other words, if you violate the GPL, you have no license to the code, but once you comply with it, you are fine. The former interpretation always struck me as bizarre: If you lost the license when you violated the GPL, surely you lost that license to that particular software. But how can that prevent you from getting a new license to a new version of the software? How are those connected? 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? Is the mere name enough? How about forks of the project? If any of this were what the GPL originally intended, you would think it would have been specified in some way. The much more reasonable interpretation is the second one: You lose the license to the concrete software you were given a license to before. Download a new version, get a new license. Stop violating the license, and you are ok.

mjg59 15y ago
That's certainly another plausible interpretation, but it's not one that the license authors appear to agree with - otherwise, the additional paragraph in GPLv3 wouldn't be necessary. Individual authors may obviously disagree and refuse to enforce the license in that manner, but it's something that you probably want to confirm with the copyright holders before relying on it. It's also not an argument that any of the defendants involved in the SFC lawsuits appear to have made.
- 15y ago

tibbon 15y ago

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.

thristian 15y ago
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.
- dedward 15y ago
  Thats how things work..... why would you spend time and money on something that is not likely to cause you damages? It is a calculated risk..... andnthey arent eliminating the risk, just reducing it.
  - thristian 15y ago
    If you honestly believe that it's acceptable to screw over your business partners (and the people who write the software that your business depends on are your partners, even if there's no monetary recompense involved) as much as you want up until you get caught, I'm not sure I can explain this in terms you'll understand.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]