# GPL lawsuit



## Phishfry (Nov 5, 2019)

I scraped this from HackerNews and have a FreeBSD specific question:








						When companies use the GPL against each other, our community loses
					

Our Executive Director, Karen Sandler, has warned for years about the dangers of lawsuits between two for-profit companies engaged in a legal dispute in which the GPL is tangentially featured.  Unlike Conservancy, companies don't use legal action as the last resort, and they don't select their...




					sfconservancy.org
				




How would this case be affected if they were using FreeBSD as their OS?
Our ports still fall under their respective licenses.
But to play devils advocate, If they did not alter the ports source code do they still have to provide public sources?

I had heard that Mikrotik and Ubiquity both used open source in their products without providing source material.
Would anything be different if they were using FreeBSD as their OS?


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## mark_j (Nov 5, 2019)

There would be no case if it was a BSD-style license; it's a no-sue license by definition. 

Ironically, this is what they get for using Linux and by implication, the viral license that is GPL.

As you say, it isn't just the Linux usage, but other things. One of my routers has GPL code and they've used everything from the web site to the VOIP with GPL licenses. It's great companies are using free software but it's a shame most of it is that awful GPL stuff.

To answer your question on source code: YES. That's the part of the license that attempts to keep it open for everyone. If someone asks, you're to provide it. You can charge for it, but that's stipulated in the license. If you made changes you have to release them as well, even if those changes expose your intellectual property.

This is why the GPL is a terrible license that calls itself "free" and isn't free in any way, shape or form.


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## SirDice (Nov 5, 2019)

mark_j said:


> To answer your question on source code: YES. That's the part of the license that attempts to keep it open for everyone. If someone asks, you're to provide it.


If you used the unaltered code then you can simply refer to the original and don't have to provide it yourself. However, if you have _modified_ that code then you would need to provide those patches or the entire modified code.


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## obsigna (Nov 5, 2019)

I am not a lawyer, and I am happy not to be one. Fortunately, I am a free citizen coming from a constitutional democracy (Germany) and living now in another one (Brazil), and in this respect I consider the U.S. a fortunate democracy as well. Constitutional means, the citizen's (our) rights are preserved in the constitution and in this respect everybody got the same rights, and nobody got special ones, neither lawyer, nor RMS and others who feel being entitled of standing above the constitution.

This preamble is necessary to understand my following take on the GPL and its enforcement.

*Laws, Licenses, Directives, whatsoever MUST NOT be written in a way that only lawyers get their grip on it, since THIS WOULD BE unconstitutional.*

This means the license by itself must be readable and understandable by mere mortals, and any Quick Guides to the GPL or FAQ's on the GPL are irrelevant. If somebody is able to draw any relevancy out of this additional material in law suits, then this would only prove a defect in the license itself and would render terms of it invalid. That means:

*Let's read the license itself and focus only on the license, since this is the ONE and ONLY authoritative source:*

In respect to the actual question, on how may we ship a physical device which got object code derived from GPL licensed source code on it, we need to read Section 6 of the GPLv3 or Section 3 of the GPLv2. Here comes a quote from the GPLv3:


> *6. Conveying Non-Source Forms.*
> You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License, in one of these ways:
> 
> a) Convey the object code in, or embodied in, a physical product (including a physical distribution medium), accompanied by the Corresponding Source fixed on a durable physical medium customarily used for software interchange.
> ...



Term 6b does clearly allow us to ship a FreeBSD system having object code installed on it which is based on unmodified GPL sources, and by option (2) allowing our users to access the sources by the way of the ports tree _"from a network server at no charge."_ My recommendation, keep /usr/ports intact on devices which we ship, and we're fine. However, I would ship modified sources verbatim, according to 6b(1).

Note, there is not written, that it must be our server. I understand 6b(2) and I happily can live with it, and lawyers, who want to turn the meaning of 6b(2) to anything favorable to them by any means of a FAQ or a Guide, would miserably fail.

PS:
For my own code, I don't use GPL'ed libraries by no means, and therefore I do not need to ship the sources of my code.


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## mark_j (Nov 5, 2019)

SirDice said:


> If you used the unaltered code then you can simply refer to the original and don't have to provide it yourself. However, if you have _modified_ that code then you would need to provide those patches or the entire modified code.



I get where you're coming from, but I would expect if you're using non-modified GPL code, you're using a library and including a library is OK depending on static or dynamic (more on that later).

However, should a license holder suspect you've modified the code, you would be under an obligation to release it; regardless of whether it's been modified or not. Threat of legal sanction might make you do it.
After all, you could just give the un-modified code and keep the modified - who's to know unless they can reverse engineer it. I could include a sort routine written in C with GPL license and who's to know if I never release the code but just the binary?

We had our lawyers look at code for our organization where GPL code was going to be used unmodified and they refused to allow it stating it was imposing too many restrictions on code just by its presence. The analogy of it being a virus is just so apt.

But here is the crux of using such a license. Just have a look at the size of the FAQ for this license:




__





						Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
					






					www.gnu.org
				



It's discussion of static or dynamic linking is just mind numbing.

No wonder even lawyers don't even have a consensus on it. It's a junk license.


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## Crivens (Nov 5, 2019)

Basically, you get 1 D8+3 opinions per lawyer.


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