Free Software Foundation Files Suit Against Cisco For GPL Violations

Fri Dec 12 14:20:19 EST 2008

Are there any places where Sugar is in violation of its licenses?

-walter

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 2:14 PM, John Gilmore <gnu at toad.com> wrote:
> OLPC is at risk of similar action unless it gets its act together.
> The project and its customers have skated by on GPL compliance,
> figuring that we're the good guys, and make halfhearted attempts every
> once in a while, so we won't get sued.  That didn't work for Cisco.
> Even a public *allegation* by FSF that OLPC is not compliant would
> have an effect similar to the "We're going Microsoft" debacle, further
> alienating the free software development community who OLPC depends
> deeply upon.  OLPC has, by distributing binaries under DRM, without
> source code, and with minimal notice, hung a sword over its head that
> just about anybody could unleash.
>
>        John
>
> From: Brett Smith <brett at fsf.org>
> To: info-press at gnu.org, info-fsf at gnu.org, info-gnu at gnu.org
> Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 12:10:50 -0500
> List-Archive: <http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gnu>
>
> ## Free Software Foundation Files Suit Against Cisco For GPL Violations
>
> BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, December 11, 2008 -- The Free
> Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that it has filed a
> copyright infringement lawsuit against Cisco.  The FSF's complaint
> alleges that in the course of distributing various products under the
> Linksys brand Cisco has violated the licenses of many programs on
> which the FSF holds copyright, including GCC, binutils, and the GNU C
> Library.  In doing so, Cisco has denied its users their right to share
> and modify the software.
>
> Most of these programs are licensed under the GNU General Public
> License (GPL), and the rest are under the GNU Lesser General Public
> License (LGPL).  Both these licenses encourage everyone, including
> companies like Cisco, to modify the software as they see fit and then
> share it with others, under certain conditions.  One of those
> conditions says that anyone who redistributes the software must also
> provide their recipients with the source code to that program.  The
> FSF has documented many instances where Cisco has distributed licensed
> software but failed to provide its customers with the corresponding
> source code.
>
> "Our licenses are designed to ensure that everyone who uses the
> software can change it," said Richard Stallman, president and founder
> of the FSF.  "In order to exercise that right, people need the source
> code, and that's why our licenses require distributors to provide it.
> We are enforcing our licenses to protect the rights that everyone
> should have with all software: to use it, share it, and modify it as
> they see fit."
>
> "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."
>
> "Free software developers entrust their copyrights to the FSF so we
> can make sure that their work is always redistributed in ways that
> respect user freedom," said Peter Brown, executive director of the
> FSF.  "In the fifteen years we've spent enforcing our licenses, we've
> never gone to court before. We have always managed to get the
> companies we have worked with to take their obligations seriously. But
> at the end of the day, we're also willing to take the legal action
> necessary to ensure users have the rights that our licenses
> guarantee."
>
> The complaint was filed this morning in United States District Court
> for the Southern District of New York by the Software Freedom Law
> Center, which is providing representation to the FSF in this case.
> The case is number 08-CV-10764 and will be heard by Judge Paul
> G. Gardephe.  A copy of the complaint is available at
> <http://www.fsf.org/licensing/complaint-2008-12-11.pdf>.
>
> ### About the FSF
>
> The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
> promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
> redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and
> use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating
> system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free
> software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
> political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,
> located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
> about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
> <http://donate.fsf.org>. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
>
> ### About the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL)
>
> The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a license for software.  When
> a program is released under its terms, every user will have the
> freedom to share and change it, no matter how they get it.  The GPL is
> the most popular free software license in the world, used by almost
> three quarters of all free software packages.  The FSF recently
> updated the license to address new concerns in the free software
> community; version 3 of the GPL (GPLv3) was released on June 29, 2007.
>
> ### About the GNU Operating System and Linux
>
> Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a
> free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only
> operating system developed specifically for the sake of users'
> freedom. See <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html>.
>
> In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for
> one, the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under
> the GNU GPL, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux
> formed a complete free operating system, which made it possible for
> the first time to run a PC without non-free software. This combination
> is the GNU/Linux system. For more explanation, see
> <http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html>.
>
> ### Media Contacts
>
> Brett Smith
> Licensing Compliance Engineer
> Free Software Foundation
> +1 (617) 542 5942 x18
> <brett at fsf.org>
>
>  ###
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-- 
Walter Bender
Sugar Labs
http://www.sugarlabs.org