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Conservancy Sues VMware Over GPL Compliance

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  • Conservancy Sues VMware Over GPL Compliance

    Phoronix: Conservancy Sues VMware Over GPL Compliance

    The Software Freedom Conservancy has today announced a lawsuit against VMware for failing to comply with the GPL on Linux...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    I wonder if lawyers/judges know what linux or GPL is.

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    • #3
      Originally posted by eydee View Post
      I wonder if lawyers/judges know what linux or GPL is.
      In Germany they do. Further read: https://www.jipitec.eu/issues/jipite...8746871.43.pdf

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      • #4
        Originally posted by eydee View Post
        I wonder if lawyers/judges know what linux or GPL is.
        Of course not, they are predominantly tech illiterate and even then so few people care about owning their computers to know about this stuff. But this is really no different than most license violations, and proprietary vendors violate each others licenses all the time, and thus is straightforward in the legal sense - they don't need to know or care about the ethics of the license or what its applied to.

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        • #5
          Very interesting. SF conservancy says that this is the first lawsuit about combining GPL with non-GPL components in the world, so the outcome will set a precedent. And in any case it's nice to see the license enforced like that (if only that was also done to Allwinner...).

          Originally posted by eydee View Post
          I wonder if lawyers/judges know what linux or GPL is.
          They know what copyright is, and the GPL text isn't very long by lawyers' standards.

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          • #6
            Good. I hate VMware. Go Conservancy!

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            • #7
              Originally posted by zanny View Post
              Of course not, they are predominantly tech illiterate and even then so few people care about owning their computers to know about this stuff. But this is really no different than most license violations, and proprietary vendors violate each others licenses all the time, and thus is straightforward in the legal sense - they don't need to know or care about the ethics of the license or what its applied to.
              Fail. The GPL is a derivative works and publication license. They KNOW what that is. There's a reason that it never got to court with Actiontec and Verizon on Busybox once a suit got filed.

              It's simple. Did you abide by the terms of the license that is the only way you can make a derived work and publish it or the original protected work? (Hint: It's pretty damn easy to provide proof of compliance- and not doing it is all but a slam-dunk of NON-compliance.) If the answer is "NO", the rights holders with Standing can sue you for up to $150k as allowed by Law for each and every willful infringement, which is to say each and every copy of your product that you sold WITH the infringement on it- and you get the dubious joy of either making up with the rights holders that sued you so you can keep the stuff in there, or RIP IT OUT.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Svartalf View Post
                If the answer is "NO", the rights holders with Standing can sue you for up to $150k as allowed by Law for each and every willful infringement, which is to say each and every copy of your product that you sold WITH the infringement on it- and you get the dubious joy of either making up with the rights holders that sued you so you can keep the stuff in there, or RIP IT OUT.
                Keep in mind that the lawsuit was entered in germany, and I don't think german law works that way.

                I am sure though that commercial copyright violation in germany can be a costly thing, up to and including jail time. I'm really curious how vmware's defense is going to look like.

                They may claim "zero damages", because the kernel code is released free of charge, anyway. While I don't think the law works that way (IANAL), that would only prevent a hefty fine, but then they still don't have a license allowing them to commercially distribute the GPL'ed work, so a court order to immediately stop distributing any product containing the code in question could get through.

                They may claim (as others have before) that the GPL is invalid and all that, but if it is, then they still don't have a license, thus cannot distribute the code.


                Like I said: I'm really curious about their defense. Too bad it won't be public.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Another, more in-depth article on the subject is at LWN:


                  Originally posted by Svartalf View Post
                  Fail. The GPL is a derivative works and publication license. They KNOW what that is. There's a reason that it never got to court with Actiontec and Verizon on Busybox once a suit got filed.

                  It's simple. Did you abide by the terms of the license that is the only way you can make a derived work and publish it or the original protected work? (Hint: It's pretty damn easy to provide proof of compliance- and not doing it is all but a slam-dunk of NON-compliance.) If the answer is "NO", the rights holders with Standing can sue you for up to $150k as allowed by Law for each and every willful infringement, which is to say each and every copy of your product that you sold WITH the infringement on it- and you get the dubious joy of either making up with the rights holders that sued you so you can keep the stuff in there, or RIP IT OUT.
                  Is that the way it goes under US or German law? Because it's worth keeping in mind that this is being done in Germany, which has very different rules (generally in favor of the GPL license holder).

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                  • #10
                    Doesn't suprise me. I never got the VMware thing. There's a reason it's illegal to publish benchmarks of their software. Hint: It's slower than every open-source solution out there, even VirtualBox in some cases. It might seem easier, if you're willing to really open the checkbooks, but these solutions are sofisticated in their nature, I expect the people handling them to be technically proficient and smart enough to learn the ropes. And when there's a problem, you don't have to pay through the nose to fix it.

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