> So... opinions yet?
I think this is probably one of the places where there are relatively
few oppinions on the issue.
Snipped from http://www.fsf.org/news/2008-12-cisco-suit
|"We began working with Cisco in 2003 to help them establish a process
|for complying with our software licenses, and the initial changes were
|very promising," explained Brett Smith, licensing compliance engineer at
|the FSF. "Unfortunately, they never put in the effort that was necessary
|to finish the process, and now five years later we have still not seen
|a plan for compliance. As a result, we believe that legal action is the
|best way to restore the rights we grant to all users of our software."
When I worked at Be, Inc. we were contacted by the FSF when we didn't
properly distribute everytihng. They're really quite friendly folks,
willing to work with companies to get things to comply.
They had 5 years. I don't care how many restructurings a particular
group has within that time. (That's the only reason I can think of as to
a legitimate reason this would have been delayed.) It just doesn't take
that long to get everything in order.
It is quite simple: If it is linked in to a GPLed application (even
dynamically), it becomes GPLed. If this included things that licenses
or legislation prevents from being readily handled, then you should
have structured things to avoid this in the first place. (Fortunately,
due to the GPL v3, if they added code to which they have patents, they
basically reliquish the patents.)
When it comes to some items, things get simpler. The LGPL allows you
to modify libraries, but perhaps not the application itself. In this
case you sometimes need to provide object files of the closed source
components so the LGPLed parts can be modified and relinked. (Due to the
Tivoization claused in the (L)GPL v3, they need to allow people to put
this modified executible on the devices.)
Then again, if they were actually using older pre-GPL3 versions of the
software (this has been on-going for 5 years, and they may not have
been using current versions even then) then things get simpler still.
You don't lose your patents by using them in GPLed code, and you do not
have to provide a method for people to upload the modified code to the
device.
It looks like Oracle was trying to call a bluff. They've clearly not
been paying attention, though, because the FSF has done this sort of
thing before. You don't have to accept the GPL license, but the GPL
license is the only thing granting you rights outside of standard
copyright law. If you don't accept it, you can neither modify the code,
nor distribute it to other people.
Cheers,
--
Steven Black <blacks@indiana.edu> / KeyID: 8596FA8E
Fingerprint: 108C 089C EFA4 832C BF07 78C2 DE71 5433 8596 FA8E
