Gregory's ServerA funny bit of trivia from the GPL's wikipedia page: Area Man Violates Own License
aeva
20 comments
aeva
@mrcopilot ok so here's a contrived example: let's say someone makes a game that has an unmodified GPL dependency, and they distribute the game with the game's source code, but because they don't understand how licenses work they put their own source code under CC-BY-NC-ND which forbids modification, commercial use, and doesn't grant any useful rights specific to software. That's several GPL violations despite their source code being available to the public.
aeva
@mrcopilot so in theory the copyright holder for whatever GPL library that game used could sue in hopes of getting the code released under a compatible license or to get the game pulled from distribution or collect damages or whatever else it is that people who file lawsuits hope to achieve
MrCopilot
@aeva I worked on a commercial device that shipped with some PC software & the embedded device sources were just packaged on that CD. There was definitely no feasible way for the customer/end user or even manufacturer to update that code without removing a bunch of silicone and soldering on a serial interface, but you know, "letter of the law". Back then I was just happy to be putting another penguin off the end of a production line. Now, I am conflicted with a few decisions made above me.
MrCopilot
@aeva A pre yocto arm embedded linux project on a brand new chip, it was a ton of education, fun, anxiety and finally triumph. The screen interface was a nightmare but the day that the first properly aligned tux boot screen appeared was indescribably joyous and as memorable as all 3 of my children's births.
MrCopilot replied to aeva
@aeva Well the first one was long since former and I couldn't really be bothered to ask. mrscopilot enjoys my excitement over all things tech and was there every night during the research development and bring up phases, so I suspect she was as relieved as I was proud & excited for the stress to break. The youngest gets me and grew up exclusively using Tux machines. She's a grown up mostly windows user now, but I still love her dearly, a little less, but very dearly. Typed via Windows 11 box
Luna 🇩🇰🦊 //nullptr::live
@aeva VMWare has been sued multiple times over taking parts of Linux source code and integrating it in to their closed source software I guess
Luna 🇩🇰🦊 //nullptr::live
@aeva Well, besides code availability it was also the fact that the code of the app that (statically) integrated the source was under a license which is incompatible. You can't integrate GPL code in any way with proprietary software according to the license, as the license is viral. Anything that uses GPL code needs to be licensed under the GPL as well.
aeva
@LunaFoxgirlVT right so was the source code available and simply under an incompatible license or was the source code also not available?
Luna 🇩🇰🦊 //nullptr::live
@aeva in this case the Linux component was open source but the rest of their software was closed source.
Jeffrey
@aeva Funny bit of trivia: that isn't actually violation. The GPL only requires to make the source code available, and only to those you distributed binaries to. It does not require you distribute it with the binaries nor publicly post it somewhere. They'd only be in violation if someone downloaded the binary and requested the source and it was refused. |
A question for open source licensing nerds out there: has anyone ever been taken to court over a GPL violation for anything other than the requirements involving the mere availability of source code?