Who am I and why am I here?

My personal journey into the communities

The culture in which we grow up defines our values. For me:

BBS communities (FIDO, Z-Netz, …) and UseNet @ age 12
programming DOS shareware in TurboPascal @ age 13
- Didn’t know about Free Software yet. My apologies!
switched to GNU/Linux before Windows 95, never looked back
- learning about Free Software, GNU, copyleft, the GPL
from 1994 on, helped building a non-for-profit ISP
- started to write + contribute patches against software we used there
from 1999 onwards: netfilter/iptables, the Linux 2.3/2.4 packet filter

⇒ all of the above were communities of enthusiasts

Until around 2000, Linux was still the niche of the nerds
- the Long-bearded gurus used a real UNIX instead
- the rest of the world was trapped in Microsoft-land
GPL violations on the Linux kernel were not known to me until about 2002
First news about GPL violations made me very upset
- the industry ignored our culture, rules and norms
- they took what we had created and did not give back
- as companies didn’t react to friendly reminders, I started legal action
- gpl-violations.org was started, first legal case in 2003
- enforcement in hundreds of cases, most of them out of court
- prevailed in several German court cases, 100% success rate

In the active phase of gpl-violations.org, we would

browse new product announcements, vendor web sites for suspicious-looking products
go into electronics stores and make test purchases
disassemble the hardware
reverse-engineer serial console, JTAG
dump flash via JTAG or hot-air-rework and offline flash dumping
manually unpack the (often proprietary) firmware image formats
search for strings/symbols of Linux kernel code that I hold copyright on
As this is the technical part, it can actually be quite enjoyable.
Buying new gadgets and probing test-points for UART/JTAG definitely more enjoyable and rewarding than Sudoku for me ;)

After technical analysis is complete, the legal battle starts

explaining technical evidence to your lawyer
reviewing legal briefs of both parties
spending lots of time trying to teach corporate legal departments what you have learned as a teenager growing up with FOSS
makes you even more frustrated/upset, as this costs time
- not only do they insult the community and its culture
- they now also keep me from writing more code by being hostile or ignorant
- and they force me to take legal risks

Starts all over again with each new vendor, department within the vendor, or at least in every new market Linux gets introduced :(

companies start to work on/with Linux without following collaborative development model. Their management is free to
- ignore the decades-old requests by the community
- ignore requests by their own engineers to contribute
community upset, because management did not enable, allow or require
- FOSS development to be done in the regular, collaborative process
- their engineers to contribute
gpl-violations.org uses the legal vehicle of copyright enforcement
- senior management cannot ignore legal threats, we got their attention!
Result: they ask their lawyers what needs to be done to comply to the absolute minimum legally required to not get in trouble
- they do still not follow the collaborative development process

Surprise: FOSS is about collaborative development

participation on mailing lists
developing code in public repositories
using fine grained commits
to jointly develop software
it is not about procrastinating over legal issues
FOSS developers really want collaboration, not license compliance
- GPL is just a legal hack to ensure the bare absolute minimum of adherence to the FOSS culture
- it suffers from impedance mismatch between what can be done under copyright law, and not what is actually the goal in terms of a development model
- focusing just on legal compliance with the license indicates a lack of understanding
GPL compliance should be driven by engineering, not legal!

exist between every set of two cultures
think of Western vs. Asian culture
westerners (farang/gaijin/laowei) are considered rude, if they
- stick chopsticks in a rice bowl anywhere in Asia
- have loud phone conversations on a Japanese train
- want to split a restaurant bill in China
- decline to accept Soju offered by their Korean host
- use a Buddha statues head as decoration in Thailand
Being European and coming to Asia likely causes me to make mistakes due to the cultural differences.
those mistakes may cause people to be upset with me. How could I not know? Couldn’t I at least inform myself before travelling?
This is not so different from an electronics or proprietary software company first engaging with FOSS

those parts of the IT industry exposed to (embedded) Linux for a longer time make more of an effort to comply with legal requirements only
- establishing the required release + business processes
- FOSS + proprietary tools for aiding license compliance
- Legal Network by FSFE with hundreds of legal experts
license compliance is driven by fear of legal threats, not by understanding + following collaborative development models :(
Treated similar to compliance with environmental standards, regulatory requirements, etc.

⇒ Bringing back the Western vs. Asian cultural analogy:

Our farang/gaijin/laowei now complies with local laws by not bringing restricted items (medication, too long pocket knives) into Asia which might be legal at his home (legal compliance)
He still often ignores the local culture and social norms, and is perceived by some of the locals as disrespectful or rude at times (doesn’t cause legal risks)

legal-to-the-letter compliance has significantly improved over the last 15 years
awareness that license compliance is mandatory is widely present
collaborative FOSS development model is becoming more frequent
however, some industry players, particularly those doing FOSS for a shorter time still think FOSS is a one-way road that enables them to profit on the work of others while keeping their code private / out-of-tree
- Sure, you can have a marriage that caters exclusively to the needs of one of the people involved
  - But will it be a sustainable long-term relationship?
  - Or will it just be a short affair?
we need to shift the focus from legal-centric GPL compliance to engineering-centric collaborative development

Thanks for your attention.