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+%include "default.mgp"
+%default 1 bgrad
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+%nodefault
+%back "blue"
+
+%center
+%size 7
+
+
+Enforcing the GNU GPL
+Copyright helps Copyleft
+
+
+%center
+%size 4
+by
+
+Harald Welte <hwelte@hmw-consulting.de>
+
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Contents
+
+
+ Introduction
+ Past GPL Enforcement
+ The Linksys case
+ Typical enforcement timeline
+ Success so far
+ Cases so far
+ Future GPL Enforcement
+ Thanks
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Introduction
+
+Who is speaking to you?
+
+ an independent Free Software developer
+ who earns his living off Free Software since 1997
+ who is one of the authors of the linux kernel firewall system called netfilter/iptables
+ who IS NOT A LAWYER, although this presentation is the result of dealing six months with lawyers on the GPL
+
+Why is he speaking to you?
+
+ because he became aware of copyright (copyleft?) infringement and took legal action within German jurisdiction
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Past GPL enforcement
+
+Past GPL enforcement
+
+ GPL violations are nothing new, as GPL licensed software is nothing new.
+ However, the recent Linux hype made GPL licensed software used more often
+ The FSF enforces GPL violations of code on which they hold the copyright
+ silently, without public notice
+ in lengthy negotiations
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+The Linksys case
+
+
+ During 2003 the "Linksys" case drew a lot of attention
+ Linksys was selling 802.11 WLAN Acces Ponts / Routers
+ Lots of GPL licensed software embedded in the device (included Linux, uClibc, busybox, iptables, ...)
+ FSF led alliance took the usual "quiet" approach
+ Linksys bought it self a lot of time
+ Some source code ws released two months later
+ About four months later, full GPL compliance was achieved
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+The Linksys case
+
+
+ Some developers didn't agree with this approach
+ not enough publicity
+ violators don't loose anything by first not complying and wait for the FSF
+ four months delay is too much for low product lifecycles in WLAN world
+ The netfilter/iptables project started to do their own enforcement in more cases that were coming up
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Enforcement case timeline
+
+
+ In chronological order
+ some user sends us a note he found our code somewhere
+ reverse engineering of firmware images
+ sending the infringing organization a warning notice
+ wait for them to sign a statement to cease and desist
+ if no statement is signed
+ contract technical expert to do a stdudy
+ apply for a preliminary injunction
+ if statement was signed
+ try to work out the details
+ grace period for boxes in stock possible
+ try to indicate that a donation would be good PR
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Sucess so far
+
+
+ Success so far
+ amicable agreements with a number of companies
+ some of which made significant donations to charitable organizations of the free software community
+ preliminary injunction against Sitecom, Sitecom also lost appeals case
+ more settled cases (not public yet)
+ negotiating in more cases
+ public awareness
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GPL enforcement report
+Cases so far (1/2)
+
+ Allnet GmbH
+ Siemens AG
+ Fujitsu-Siemens Computers GmbH
+ Axis A.B.
+ Securepoint GmbH
+ U.S.Robotics Germany GmbH
+ Netgear GmbH
+ Belkin Compnents GmbH
+ Asus GmbH
+ Gateprotect GmbH
+ Sitecom GmbH
+ TomTom B.V.
+ Gigabyte Technologies GmbH
+ D-Link GmbH
+ Sun Deutschland GmbH
+ Open-E GmbH
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GPL enforcement report
+Cases so far (2/2)
+
+ Siemens AG (second case)
+ Deutsche Telekom AG
+ Hitachi
+ Tecom Inc.
+ ARP Datacon GmbH
+ Conceptronic B.V.
+
+ Total about 30 cases (28 out-of-court, 2 in-court)
+ More pending
+
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Future GPL Enforcement
+
+GPL Enforcement
+ remains an important issue for Free Software
+ will start to happen within the court
+ has to be made public in order to raise awareness
+
+Problems
+ only the copyright holder (in most cases the author) can do it
+ users discovering GPL'd software need to communicate those issues to all copyright holders
+
+The http://www.gpl-violations.org/ project was started
+ as a platform wher users can report alleged violations
+ to verify those violations and inform all copyright holders
+ to inform the public about ongoing enforcement efforts
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Make later enforcement easy
+
+ Practical rules for proof by reverse engineering
+ Don't fix typos in error messages and symbol names
+ Leave obscure error messages like 'Rusty needs more caffeine'
+ Make binary contain string of copyright message, not only source
+ Practical rules for potential damages claims
+ Use revision control system
+ Document source of each copyrightable contribution
+ Name+Email address in CVS commit message
+ Consider something like FSFE FLA (Fiduciary License Agreement)
+ Make sure that employers are fine with contributions of their employees
+ If you find out about violation
+ Don't make it public (has to be new/urgent for injunctive relief)
+ Contact lawyer immediately to send wanrning notice
+
+%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
+%page
+GNU GPL - Copyright helps Copyleft
+Thanks
+
+ Thanks to
+ Alan Cox, Alexey Kuznetsov, David Miller, Andi Kleen
+ for implementing (one of?) the world's best TCP/IP stacks
+ Paul 'Rusty' Russell
+ for starting the netfilter/iptables project
+ for trusting me to maintain it today
+ Astaro AG
+ for sponsoring parts of my netfilter work
+ Free Software Foundation
+ for the GNU Project
+ for the GNU General Public License
+%size 3
+ The slides of this presentation are available at http://www.gnumonks.org/
+
+ Further Reading
+%size 3
+ The netfilter homepage http://www.netfilter.org/
+%size 3
+ The http://www.gpl-violations.org/ project
+
+
personal git repositories of Harald Welte. Your mileage may vary