%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 %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %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