Harald Welte's blog

Some comments on the heated debate on SFC / Busybox / Linux GPL enforcement

During the past week[s], there has been a heated debate on the alleged methods of GPL enforcement as it is performed by the Software Freedom Conservancy on behalf of the Busybox copyright holders.

The extent of license enforcement on Busybox has apparently triggered the proposal to create a non-GPL replacement for it, which in turn has received quite harsh responses e.g. from Matthew Garrett.

It's been relatively difficult for me to figure out what is really going on here. It is well-known that the Free Software Conservancy has been actively enforcing the GPL on Busybox. But then, at the same time gpl-violations.org has been (and still is!) similarly active in enforcing the GPL on the Linux kernel. Still, I haven't yet seen calls to write a non-GPL Linux kernel replacement. Of course, the complexity is on an entirely different scale, so this point is moot.

However, for quite some time there have been rumors about the intensity (some would say aggressiveness) of the enforcement. I don't want to accuse anybody of anything, so I'm going to write speculatively about it.

This post is to summarize my thoughts on all of this:

It is well within the right of each author / copyright holder to decide on the enforcement strategy and license interpretation. As such, I respect the decision of the authors. It is their work, they should decide what to do.
In any kind of GPL enforcement, you of course not only want the complete corresponding source code to one program, but to all of the GPL/LGPL/AGPL or otherwise copyleft licensed programs contained in the product. We at gpl-violations.org have always been requesting the complete corresponding source code to all GPL licensed software during our communication with the infringing companies. This request was typically honored by everyone, without the need to apply any pressure onto it. After all, releasing only one bit of code causes the risk to get sued by somebody else who owns the other not-yet-compliant part of the code.
Now there have been rumors that SFC was not only requesting non-Busybox source code, but also making it a condition for the explicit re-instatement of the license on Busybox. Whether or not there was such a hard condition is subject to debate and there are different opinions on it. For those in the field of FOSS licensing, it has always known that there are different lines of thought with regard to the requirement to explicit reinstatement. We in Germany generally think that it is not required at all, and the existing preliminary injunctions at least implicitly acknowledge that as they enjoin companies from distributing a product as long as it is not in compliance with the license. In other (particularly the U.S.), it is generally assumed that explicit reinstatement is required. In such a case, it may very well be legally possible to use it as a lever to obtain source code for other programs like the Linux kernel. However, I am personally not sure if that really is the right strategy. Not everything that is possible legally is ethically the right thing to do. But then, ethics and legal customs differ widely in the FOSS communities, as they do in society in general. Some countries and communities believe in the death penalty, others don't. Some countries allow abortion, others don't. Some allow prostitution, others don't. So when judging about whether that "reinstatement lever" is acceptable or not, we have to accept that there may be different lines of thought. I for my part definitely think that the far superior method is, beyond doubt, to have a rights holder on those other program in order to make any demand for source code (as opposed to a mere request without implicit or explicit legal threat).
There also have been rumors about a requirement on submitting future source code releases to a compliance audit by the Conservancy. According to SFC sources, there never was any such demand, and the rumors are likely spawned by some incorrect claims of a defendant in a court case, which ended up in the public record. If there was such a requirement, I wouldn't think it is just - at least not for a first-time non-intentional infringement case. If there was repeated infringement and a clear sign that it would happen again and again, such a requirement for future audits may be justified, depending on the case.
People who claim that GPL enforcement is scaring away companies from using Linux and/or other Free Software also have to be careful in what they say. If a commercial entity enters a new market (let's say Android Tablets), then there is a certain due diligence required before entering that market. So if you don't understand Free Software and particularly GPL licensing, then you shouldn't place a Linux-based device on the market. Just think about an analogy: If you have a recycling company and enter a new market (disposal of hazardous chemicals), then you cannot simply treat those chemicals as regular waste, wait until you run into legal trouble and expect to get away with it.
I think there are still far too many GPL violations out there, and we need to see more enforcement in order to get all the major players in their respective lines of business into compliance. But come on, dealing with embedded devices in 2012 and still getting compliance outright wrong really means that there has not been the least bit of attention on this subject. And without enforcement, it is never going to change. People who want no enforcement should simply use MIT-style licenses.
Last, but not least, I also think GPL compliance is a matter of fair competition. There are some companies who really do a good job in ensuring compliance with the various Free Software licenses. If their competition doesn't invest the funds into the respective skills, procedures and business processes, they are getting an unfair competitive advantage against those who are doing it right. If there was no enforcement, the motivation would be to reduce efforts in compliance, not increase it.

Let me conclude with a clear statement to anyone who thinks that by replacing Busybox with a non-GPL licensed project they can evade GPL enforcement: It will not work. There are others out there enforcing the GPL. Last but not least gpl-violations.org. Despite the notoriously outdated webpage, we are still alive and kicking, churning down on the violation reports that we receive. Armijn Hemel, Joachim Steiger, Tim Engelhardt, Julia Gebert and Till Jaeger deserve much of the credit for all that work, while I'm mostly spending each awake minute hacking Free Software for mobile communications. Yes, we should publish more about our activities, and I hope to find the time to do so. There should at least be an annual report with the number of cases...

HTCs delays in releasing Linux source code are unacceptable

The Taiwanese smart phone maker HTC is widely known to be delaying its Linux kernel source code releases of their Android products. Initially, this has been described to to the requirement for source code review, and making sure that no proprietary portions are ending up in the release.

While the point is sort-of moot from the beginning (there should be no proprietary portions inside the Linux kernel for a product that wants to avoid entering any legal grey zone in the first place), I was willing to accept/tolerate it for some time.

At one point more than one year ago, gpl-violations.org actually had the opportunity to speak in person to senior HTC staff about this. I made it very clear that this delay is not acceptable, and that they should quickly fix their processes in order to make sure they reduce that delay, eventually down to zero.

Recently, I received news that the opposite is happening. HTC still has the same delays, and they are now actually claiming that even a 120 days delay is in compliance with the license.

I do think neither the paying HTC customers, nor tha Free Software community as a whole have to tolerate those delays. It is true that the GPLv2 doesn't list a deadline until when the source code has to be provided, but it is at the same also very clear what the license wants: To enable people to study the program source code. Especially in todays rapid smart phone product cycles, 120 days is a very long time.

So I hereby declare my patience has ended here. I am determined to bring those outrageous delays to an end. This will be one of my new year resolutions for 2012: Use whatever means possible to make HTC understand that this is not how you can treat Free Software, the community, its customers, the GPL and in the end, copyright itself.

Back home after successful KOSS Legal Conference

The first incarnation of the KOSS Legal Conference was a big success. There were many participants from a variety of backgrounds, such as

Independent Korean legal experts
Legal scholars from Korean law schools
International legal experts (e.g. Till Jaeger, Carlo Piana, etc.)
Representatives from the major Korean IT industry
Representatives of the community organizations like FSFE
Independent technical experts like Armijn Hemel and myself

The discussions have been a big success, with significant participation from the floor. There are many events that I attended where it was hard to actually get any participation from the audience - but the KOSS Law conference was definitely not one of them. Some of the questions were easy to respond to, some other questions really tackled the difficult issues in Free Software License Compliance.

What was clear to see from the Industry participants: FOSS License Compliance has become an important topic in the last couple of years: One the one hand as a result of virtually no TV set / mobile phone / PMP or other device running without Linux or other FOSS. On the other hand, I'm sure that the enforcement efforts of gpl-violations.org and the SFLC also have had significant impact on that.

What I personally find important is that compliance is only considered as part of the overall FOSS picture. Complying with the license text is the minimum that companies involved with FOSS should do. Rather, they should look beyond mere compliance and consider the benefit of engaging more actively with the community, contribute code back upstream/mainline and really becoming a first-class citizen of the Free Software world.

As a big surprise to everyone, Jim Zemlin of the Linux Foundation made a surprise visit towards the end of the second day of the conference.

Many thanks to the KOSS Law center for bringing this together and organizing such an event. Thanks also to the Korean NIPA (National IT Industry Promotion Agency) and the FSFE for their support of the event.

Going to attend Korean FOSS legal conference

Recently I had been invited by the Korean Open Source Software (KOSS) Law Center to attend their 2011 KOSS conference scheduled for November 17 and 18 in Seoul, Korea.

This conference is organized by the KOSS Law Center with support by the Korean Government (National IT Industry Promotion Agency). Its primary purpose is to share best practises in terms of FOSS licensing, license compliance but also FOSS community interaction within the Korean IT industry and the public sector.

I'm happy to present on Beyond Legal Compliance - Embracing the FOSS community, where I will outline that the primary focus should not be on to-the-letter legal compliance, but to a proactive way of interacting with the FOSS community. After all, collaborative development is what FOSS is all about...

However, due to a schedule conflict with the DeepSec 2011 conference in Vienna (where I'm giving a two-day GSM security workshop), I'm only able to attend the second day of the KOSS conference.

The speaker line-up for the KOSS conference is quite impressive, and it includes Karsten Gerloff (FSFE), Till Jaeger (JBB), Carlo Piana (FSFE), Keith Bergelt (OIN), Armijn Hemel (gpl-violations.org/Tjaldur) and others.

Unfortunately there seems to be no homepage, at least none with an English language title that Google would be able to find. Carlo Piana has mentioned the event in his blog four days ago.

UPDATE: There now is a conference page, although in Korean language only ;)

Unbelievable statements in GPL related case in the Supreme Court of Mauritius

I've recently received some documents regarding a court case at the Supreme Court of Mauritius.

The plaintiff is a company called Linux Solutions Ltd. in Mauritius. It seems to be covering an alleged breach of an NDA between a contracted freelancing developer and a company in Mauritius. That contractor (the defendant) has apparently published some of the work he had done while contracting for the plaintiff.

While none of that seems to be clearly connected with the GPL, what is extremely disturbing is the sworn affidavit / oath by one of the executives of the plaintiff. It says things like:

5. Licenses of open-source software like "Linux" and "Asterisk" have no copyright restrictions which in effect puts no restrictions on their use or distribution. As a consequence, any work which is derived from the open source software as conceptualized, created, installed and managed, by the Applicant becomes the ownership of the Applicant.

6. In the light of the above, therefore, the applications, configuration files and features so developed by the Applicant are the sole property of the Applicant, make up the knowledge base of the Applicant, make the basis of its business operations, and are highly confident in nature. The applications, configurations and features have been built and acquired by the Applicant through important capital investments and manpower over a period of time.

So let me phrase this more clearly: Somebody, under oath is stating at the Supreme Court, that GPL-Licensed software (which the Linux kernel definitely is), has no copyright restrictions? And that any derived work is the sole property of whoever created the derivative? What kind of pot are they smoking in Mauritius?

If there's anyone in the Free Software legal community interested in filing some kind of legal document to the Supreme Court of Mauritius to clarify this issue, feel free to contact me for more details on the case. No matter whether the defendant has broken some NDA, I think it's unacceptable to see such ridiculous claims being made at a Supreme Court.

In case you don't believe it, here are some scanned samples:

AVM trying to spread FUD about the Cybits case

Unsurprisingly, AVM is now trying to claim their legal action is not related to any GPL violation. This couldn't be further from the truth.

In both the court hearings (in two independent cases), AVM has repeatedly declined to make a clear statement that the modification and installation of modified version of the GPL-Licensed parts (like Linux) is acceptable to them.

We have raised this question in front of court and out of court, and AVM was not willing to make such a declaration. If they had, I don't think I would have had much reason to join the lawsuit on the side of the defendant.

I have no connection to Cybits (the defendant). There has never been any business or other relationship to them, and they have not been involved in funding my legal expenses. To be honest, I don't even care about child filtering software in general, no matter from which vendor.

But I do care about the GPL, and the freedoms it grants. The GPL is intended to allow any third party to modify, recompile, re-install and run modified versions of the respective GPL licensed program. Any court order / verdict / judgement that tries to undermine this freedom is a substantial danger to the Free Software movement - and as such I will do what I can to prevent it.

AVM has stated in front of the court that AVM releases the source code compliant with the GPL, anyone can download, compile and use it - just not on OUR hardware. There you can clearly see their attitude: They see the FritzBox as their hardware. Last time I checked, the unit is not rented by AVM, but is legally sold to the customer. It is his decision to do with it what he wants. Under the terms of the GPL, it is his decision to install whatever software on the hardware, including modified versions of the GPL licensed Linux kernel.

Just imagine a world, where you buy a Laptop from HP, with Windows pre-installed. Now further imagine that there is a third-party software vendor (e.g. Canonical with its Ubuntu). Now imagine that HP was suing Canonical for offering different software that runs on their hardware. This is the kind of analogy that you need to think about.

I don't think AVM is truly understanding the daemons they are calling here. If they actually manage to get a finally awarded judgement that deprives third parties of their rights under the GPL, AVM will have violated the GPL, specifically clause 6: You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. And what would that mean? That the GPLv2 is revoked and AVM looses the right to use the GPLv2 licensed software they use in the product.

Court hearing in the AVM / Cybits / GPL case

Today was the court hearing at the Berlin district court in the case that I blogged about yesterday.

Nothing really new happened there. AVM still has a number of claims that I consider extremely dangerous to Free Software in the embedded market:

collective/aggregate work
They claim to have some rights on the collective work of their own proprietary components and the GPL licensed components. While that may or may not be true, they also argue that based on such rights, they can legally prevent anyone from installing modified versions of those GPL licensed components onto the device. To me, that would clearly be a further restriction under the GPL, and thus violate the terns of the License.
using rmmod on proprietary kernel module is a modification under copyright law
This is where it starts to get really ridiculous. Both the module unload feature inside the kernel as well as the rmmod command itself are licensed under GPL. Their sole intended purpose is to unload modules from the Linux kernel. AVM now claims that the defendant is violating AVMs copyright because he unloads a proprietary AVM kernel module. Not only is it legally extremely questionable to have binary-only kernel modules at all... but then trying to tell other people they cannot unload such code is outrageous. AVM seems to not understand that they have _sold_ the device to the user. He can stop and unload any program on the device. The device is not owned by or rented by AVM.
copying code from NAND flash to RAM requires explicit permission from the copyright holder
Once again, we have a situation where the user has bought the AVM product. He has obtained a license to the software programs. Under German copyright law there is even no requirement to have a license for 'normal use of the program' as long as the program was obtained lawfully. The CPU on the AVM device (like any CPU in any computer) can only execute code that's accessible to the memory/data bus. Code in NAND flash can never be executed directly, it always has to be copied into RAM before it can be executed. The claim that this operation requires separate permission by the copyright holder is wrong. The copying happens as part of the 'normal use of the program'.

AVM has filed several other claims against Cybits based on trademark and competition law. They go as far as to debating whether a certain LED on the product malfunctions after the user has installed the Cybits software on the product ;). I don't really want to go into details here, but I think it's mainly arguing for the sake of the argument. AVM wants to keep and extend its monopolistic power over those devices, even after they have been sold. That's where the real anti-competitiveness here is... If you look at popular alternative firmware projects like OpenWRT, you will find many vendors and literally hundreds of supported devices. None of them is from AVM. Isn't that striking, considering that AVM is told to have > 60% market share in Germany?

The court has heard arguments from all sides and is now adjourned. All parties are now again going to submit lengthy piles of paper to the court. Within those originating from my lawyers and myself, we will definitely once again outline our position. AVM can do whatever it wants, but it cannot use legal means to disallow the legitimate and intended modification + use of modified versions of GPL licensed code on their devices.

The implications of such a legal win for AVM go way beyond AVM or the DSL router business. They go all over the embedded market, and include NAS devices, Android smartphones, e-book readers, etc. Just think about the implications for OpenWRT, Cyanogenmod, Openinkpot and all the other firmware modification and 'homebrew' projects out there.

German dsl-router vendor AVM seeks to remove the GPLs freedoms

Today, there has been a joint press release of gpl-violations.org and the Free Software Foundation Europe on a legal battle that has been ongoing for quite some time:

The German maker of popular dsl-routers (AVM) is using legal means to try to halt a third party company (Cybits) from modifying the GPL licensed components (like the Linux kernel) of AVM-branded routers. Furthermore, it seeks to ask courts to halt Cybits from distributing software by which end users can modify that GPL licensed software.

This is outrageous! AVM does not own the copyright to that GPL-licensed software. How can they seek to prevent anyone from exercising their right to modify the code and run modified versions of it? This is one of the most fundamental freedoms that Free Software grants its users.

In the last lawsuits (preliminary proceedings) that AVM has brought about, I have intervened on behalf of Cybits. At that time, the court was impressed and has restricted a previously-granted preliminary injunction against Cybits to not include any claims regarding the Free Software portions of the product.

But meanwhile, AVM has filed for the main/regular proceedings. Tomorrow (June 21st, 11am), there will be the first hearing at the district court (Landgericht Berlin, Room 2709, Littenstr. 12-17, Berlin).

I have applied to be a side intervener in those main proceedings, too. Given that the previous court accepted this, I assume it will be accepted in the district court, too.

Normally I wouldn't care much if two companies are taking it to court. But this case is not about Cybits or AVM. This case is about the fundamental question of whether a device maker using Linux and other GPL licensed software has the right to use legal means to prevent third parties from exercising their fundamental rights granted under the GPL.

For more information about the case and background information, please check out this background page at FSFE.

Interview with German newspaper taz about gpl-violations.org work

There has been an interview for (at least) the online edition of the German newspaper taz - die tageszeitung. If you understand German, you can read it here.

By coincidence, I'm a subscriber to that very same newspaper for more than 10 years ;)

Apple not providing LGPL webkit source code for latest iOS 4.3.x

As some people may know, next to a plethora of BSD licensed code, Apple is using some LGPL licensed code in their iPhone products.

So far, it seems they have always provided the respective source code in a timely manner for each and every release they have made on a website www.opensource.apple.com.

However, in recent months it seems they have deviated from that policy for unknown reasons. As my friend and webkit developer zecke has blogged, Apple has stopped to release their webkit source code with iOS release 4.3.0. The corresponding website simply states: "coming soon".

iOS 4.3.0 was released on March 10, 4.3.1 on March 25, 4.3.2 on April 14 and 4.3.3 on May 4. For all of those releases, no source code has been published.

It cannot be a simple oversight, as multiple inquiries have been made to Apple by interested developers. However, the source code yet has to be released.

I think it is time that Apple gets their act together and becomes more straight-forward with LGPL compliance. It is not acceptable to delay the source code release for 8 weeks after shipping a LGPL licensed software. Especially not, if you have already demonstrated in the past that you are well aware of the obligations and have a process and a website to release the corresponding source code under the license conditions.

Back from the GPL Compliance Engineering Workshop in Taipei

I've been a bit over a week in Taipei, mainly to co-present (with Armijn Hemel) the GPL compliance engineering workshop at Academia Sinica. The workshop was attended by more than 100 representatives of the local IT industry in Taiwan, from both legal and engineering departments.

I think even only the sheer number of attendees is a great sign to indicate how important the subject of Free Software license compliance has become in the IT industry, and specifically in the embedded consumer electronics market.

I would like to use this opportunity again to thank the OSSF at Academia Sinica for doing a great job in organizing this event.

Thanks also to Armijn, who not only does excellent work at gpl-violations.org but also covered the majority of the presentations at the workshop.

So what did I do the remaining week? Lots of meetings, mostly with companies regarding GPL compliance, but also with old friends like Wolfgang Spraul and Holger Freyther who happened to be in the city at the same time.

I also had some very exciting meetings related to my various GSM related FOSS projects, but it is too early to really say anything about them.

GPL compliance workshop on December 2nd in Taipei, Taiwan

The OSSF at Academia Sinica in Taiwan has kindly organized a full-day GPL compliance workshop on December 2nd in Taipei, Taiwan.

Armijn Hemel and myself will be presenting on a variety of topics regarding GPL compliance, both from an administrative/organizational as well as a technical compliance engineering point of view.

I think this is an excellent opportunity to get in touch with product managers and engineers in Taiwan's computing and particularly embedded industry. We definitely still need more awareness in that industry, as the majority of the products in a variety of IT markets are predominantly designed in Taiwan.

So the better the know-how is there, the less GPL violations we will find further down the supply chain and finally in the retail-stores around the world.

Many thanks to the OSSF at Academia Sinica, and specifically Florence Ko and Lucien Lin for making this workshop possible [and giving me a reason to come to Taipei again ;) ]

GPL violation reports in HTC G2 Android phone

There have been various reports and blog posts about HTC again committing copyright infringement by not fulfilling the GPLv2 license conditions in their latest Android phone, the G2.

While at this point I haven't studied the situation enough in order to confirm or deny any actual violations, let me state this: The number of GPL Violation reports/allegations that we receive at gpl-violations.org on HTC by far outnumber the reports that we have ever received about any other case or company.

In addition, HTC seems to have had a long trail of problems with GPL compliance in their devices. Ever since they have started to ship Android devices containing the Linux kernel, licensed under GPLv2+, we have received those reports.

The reason I have never taken any legal action is merely a result of the fact that HTC seems to first introduce their new devices in the US, then at some point release the corresponding source code before shipping those devices into Europe and Germany. So by the time the devices are sold over here, the legal issues appear to have been resolved before.

Nonetheless, I think it is outrageous for a company of this size and significance in the market to consistently commit copyright violation (or at least walk borderline with it) and thus mistreat the very copyright holders that have created the operating system kernel they use in their devices. The linux kernel developers and the Free Software community as a whole deserve fair treatment.

Also, the competitors of HTC deserve fair treatment: Samsung, e.g. is very forthcoming with their Android phone source code releases. If I was them and would see HTC to fail to comply with the GPL, I would consider filing a unfair competition lawsuit...

Dell finally releases sources of GPL licensed software on the Streak

Today I have received news that Dell has released the source code of the GPL licensed software on the Dell Streak at http://opensource.dell.com/releases/streak. This includes, among other things, the source code to the Linux kernel they are using on the Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

This is good news! However, I have not yet checked if that source code release can be considered complete and corresponding as demanded by the GPL. At least it includes a small README file explaining how to build the sources.

I'm not very much into the Android world, but I have heard that Dell is already shipping different Android versions for the Streak. If this is true, then there should be multiple source code releases, one for each binary release they have. If you know more about available firmware versions for the streak, feel free to contact me privately.

Overall, it is great to see this release. On the other hand, it is pretty sad that we've had to do go down the gpl-violations.org enforcement route. Ever since the Streak released in the US months ago, customers are claiming to have contacted Dell forums, emailed Dell Support, asked in the Dell live web-chat and asked via twitter - without the source code being released.

Also, if you are under the impression that the Dell GPL source code as it has been released is incomplete, please let me know the exact technical details of what you think is missing, or why that source code is not matching what is running on your device. Thanks in advance.

More GPL enforcement work again.. and a very surreal but important case

In recent days and weeks, I'm doing a bit more work on the gpl-violations.org project than during the last months and years. I wouldn't say that I'm happy about that, but well, somebody has to do it :/

Right now I'm facing what I'd consider the most outrageous case that I've been involved so far: A manufacturer of Linux-based embedded devices (no, I will not name the company) really has the guts to go in front of court and sue another company for modifying the firmware on those devices. More specifically, the only modifications to program code are on the GPL licensed parts of the software. None of the proprietary userspace programs are touched! None of the proprietary programs are ever distributed either.

If that manufacturer would succeed with such a lawsuit, it would create some very nasty precedent and jeopardize the freedom of users of Linux-based embedded devices. It would be a direct blow against projects that provide "homebrew" software for embedded devices, such as OpenWRT and many others.

I've seen many weird claims and legal strategies when it comes to companies trying to deprive developers of their freedom to modify and run modified versions of Free Software. But this is definitely so weird that I still feel like I'm in a bad dream. This can't be real. It feels to surreal.

It's a pity that I cannot speak up more about the specific company in question right now. I'm desperately looking forward to the point in time where I can speak up and speak out about what has been happening behind the scenes.

More thoughts on FSF action against Apple over GNU Go

Last week, I blogged about the FSF action against Apple. This week, I intend to add a bit to that.

As it has been pointed out to me, Apple has immediately removed the GPL-infringing software from its app store. This of course means they have refrained from further infringing the GPL. It is not publicly known if they have made a declaration to cease and desist or not.

So yes, by removing the software that was distributed in violation of the GPL terms, Apple has done legally the right thing: Reduce the danger/risk of committing further (knowing) infringement.

The FSF (and probably the Free Software community in general) of course want something else: For Apple to alter their app store terms in a way that would enable software authors to have Apple distribute their GPL licensed software in it. While this might be possible very easily with small modifications to their legal terms and to the implementation of the app store, it is probably not quite easy to make a legal claim and try to force this upon Apple.

Anyone always has the choice to either distribute GPL licensed software compliant with its license terms - or not distribute it at all. If Apple prefers the latter, this is very unfortunate (and you might call it anti-social or even anti-competitive) but something that they can very well do.

The only questions that I see remaining from a legal point of view: What about the previous GPL infringements? What can (and/or has) Apple to do in return to the previous distribution of infringing software? This is where the legal pressure of the copyright holders leaves room for negotiation. Instead of monetary damages (which don't really resolve what the GPL aims to do), there could possibly be a solution where Apple has to provide the GPL license text and complete corresponding source code to the Go program through their app store. And while they're at it, they might just solve the distributing source code for copyleft style licensed software problem in a generic way. Or they might just decide that they're stupid and stubborn and not interested in solving any problems in the first place.

My take on the FSF action against Apple over GNU Go

About two weeks ago, the FSF announced that it has taken action against the Apple App Store over their distribution of GNU Go. This has apparently set off some people like lefty and triggered a length and wide debate.

I personally very much support the action the FSF has taken. Anyone involved in distribution of copyrighted material is required to do due diligence on checking that he actually has a license to do so. This is not really related to the GPL.

Yes, this means that I can take GPL enforcement action to a retail store that is selling/distributing infringing products, and I can make them provide a declaration to cease and desist from further infringements. Of course, that declaration would only be valid for this single retail store. This is why in our gpl-violations.org work, we always try to go after whatever entity is responsible for the majority or all of those infringements, rather than after a single store owner.

The reason for this is simple: In many cases, it is impossible for you as the rights holder to find out who sold the product to the retail store, and track the entire supply chain back to whoever caused the GPL violation in the first place. Also, some of those entities might reside in a different jurisdiction, so you go after the first element in the supply chain that is in your own jurisdiction, to minimize the legal risk for you as plaintiff and maximize the output in terms of your local market.

But the case with Apple is different. They are not a small retailer down the road, but the entity responsible for providing the infringing software to (almost?) all of its users. They are running that App store as a commercial company and earn money from running it (even if individual apps might be free of charge). Free Software and copyleft licenses like the GPL are a very real phenomenon in the software industry today, so they should better have thought about a proper solution, not just for GNU Go but for the tens of thousands of existing GPL licensed software projects which people might want to port or re-use in iPhone applications.

They are already doing all kinds of verification/checking/review of software for other reasons (things many people might call censoring), and as part of that process they could just as well determine the license of the software, and provide a source code download link from their store. What is the big deal? If they (or other similar app store / market / ... providers) had thought how to address the problem, there are easy and pragmatic solutions to solve them in the architecture of such a app store / marketplace system.

Also, the fact that the FSF is taking legal steps is not wrong. Even if some people might dispute whether they actually have a valid case or not (I believe they do): This is what legal cases are for: To create a clear legal situation for all participants in the dispute, and to set precedent for future similar cases. Even only from that point of view it is good that they're doing this case. At the end of it, the legal situation will be more clear, both for Apple as well as for people who want to distribute GPL licensed software through their store.

New binary analysis tool for license compliance audits released

My friends at Loohuis Consulting and Opendawn have just announced the first public release of their novel binary analysis tool.

This is a modular (python) framework facilitating the audit of compiled object code. Using it, you can analyze executable code (programs/libraries) or entire filesystem images or even complete firmware images and search it for strings, symbol tables and the like. Using a corresponding knowledge base, it can match this information against information derived from software source code and thus give some indication of whether a particular source code seems to have been used to create the binary.

It doesn't do actual instruction-level analysis or any of that sort, but it can help to automatize some of the steps that a license compliance engineer so far had to do entirely manually.

Let's hope this is a successful launch and that the project will find contributors to grow beyond the initial feature-set.

Thanks to the nlnet foundation and the Linux Foundation for sponsoring this project. I'm sure it will soon become a vital tool in compliance engineering.

Palm sued over GPL violation in muPDF

As you can see in this techworld post.

Apparently they are using the GPL licensed muPDF library and link it against their proprietary PDF viewing application. If that is true, then it would be a very straight-forward, FAQ-type violation. muPDF is not LGPL but GPL licensed, thus you cannot create derivative works without licensing them under GPL, too.

The whole license management and even software release management at Palm seems to be very sloppy. For example, based on the object code and disassembly, I can prove that the source code for libpurpleadapter on opensource.palm.com does not (or no longer) correspond to the object code that they ship.

What's particularly surprising is that Palm actually is forcing Artifex to go to court over this issue. You would expect such a straight-forward issue to be resolved fairly quickly and settled out of court, before it ever escalates or turns into a PR disaster.

You would expect a company that is regularly building and releasing firmware images to have an automatic process that packages the source code as part of the build process. In fact, Palm uses OpenEmbedded to build their images, and it is a standard feature of OpenEmbedded to create the corresponding source tarballs for everything it builds.

Furthermore, the Palm kernel contains several binary-only modules that indicate MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") in it - which is clearly not true. If you inquire about the sources, they will respond that they will not provide the sources.

Palm Pre GSM model source code available

Last night I got an e-mail by palm, that following-up to my request, the source code releases for the WebOS 1.1.2 and 1.1.3 releases have been uploaded to opensource.palm.com.

I think the response time was very quick, and I thank them for that. However, still sad that one has to remind them of it. Let's hope with future releases they have a fully automatic process for that.

Just to be very clear: The GPL does not state that you have to automatically have the source code on a web site. But the way how Palm's written offer is phrased, they say that you should visit the website to download the sources. In that case, the web site of course needs to contain the sources...

Additionally they also offer the source code on a storage medium, if you write them snail mail to a specific address - which is a good safeguard since the GPL says it has to be made available on a storage medium commonly used for software interchange.

TI tries to stop alternative operating systems on its calculators by the DMCA

Apparently, TI has been trying to use the DMCA and U.S. copyright to stop third-party developers from working on or distributing alternative operating systems for some of their calculators.

The stock OS that TI is shipping uses a cryptographic signature process to prevent the user from booting any non-TI operating system. However, the signature verification was broken and people have managed to run their own software, developed independent from TI's software.

TI is not claiming that the DMCA DRM restrictions are applicable to this case, and that the signature process constitutes a DRM system. This is obviously bogus to any technical person. The TI firmware is not encrypted, and you can copy and run it on other hardware or an emulator if you please. The protection mechanism is rather the other way around: The hardware authenticates the OS.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken up the case and is defending some of the affected people from the community against TI.

As you can see from the EFF letter to TI, the EFF cites a number of precedent cases where the courts have ruled in very similar cases that such mechanism is not a DRM system on the software.

That precedent summarized in the EFF letter is actually very exciting to me. It is directly applicable to all kinds of locked-down devices. Let's assume we're talking about a Linux-powered device like the Tivo, Motorola MAGX phones, the G1 phone (non ADP-Version). They all use GPL Licensed software that is cryptographically signed to prevent the user from exercising his Freedom to run modified versions of the GPL licensed program.

Precedent that indicates that such a system does not constitute DRM as protected by the DMCA means there is a lot more freedom for people to break such systems and freely talk about how it was performed, as well as distribute alternate software images for the respective devices - as long as the code they use is either their own or Free Software and does not contain proprietary bits of the device vendor.

Palm Pre GSM Version sells in Germany - No corresponding source code

Some 4 months ago, I wrote about Palm shipping the Palm Pre CDMA version in a GPL incompliant way. You should assume that the company has learned about their mistakes and created opensource.palm.com as a site to host their source code, compliant with the GPL and other Free Software licenses

Yesterday, the Palm Pre GSM model started to ship in Germany through O2 Telefonica. The WebOS version installed on the device is 1.1.2, and they are doing an OTA upgrade to 1.1.3.

Both of those versions are not available on the Palm opensource website!

Again the same mistake!

I wonder how much this tells us about the development procedures and release management inside Palm. We know they use OpenEmbedded to build their packages and filesystem image. OpenEmbedded can automatically generate the source code tarballs (+ patches), so the entire process of putting them up at the website could and should be automatized. No manual intervention, no mistakes, no license violations.

I have asked my lawyers to send a letter to Palm, demanding immediate release of the complete corresponding source code. If they do not comply, I am prepared to take legal action against O2 who is distributing the devices in Germany. I desperately hope we do not have to escalate to this point. If we go there, I'd better not imagine how upset O2 will be about Palm and how this will affect their business relationship.

It is so easy for Palm to have that source code on their website. We know that for technical reasons (see above). Why are they deliberately exposing themselves to the legal risk? Why are they willing to accept all the negative PR from them not respecting copyright and the GPL?

Please don't get me wrong. I am not set out to continuously complain about Palm. I would like to see more Linux phones. But why do they have to do everything wrong they can do wrong? Why do they not have somebody to advise them on playing nicely with the legal requirements of the technology they use?

Netgear trying to fool their users with "Open Source Router"

Two days ago, Netgear has announced the so-called "Open Source" WNR3500L router, together with an equally "Open Source" MyOpenRouter community.

The problem with this Open Source router is: It ships with binary-only kernel modules. Not only is this extremely Closed Source, but it also

has very practical security implications: You can never update your Linux kernel to get the latest security fixes, but have to run vulnerable old kernel versions
is a very questionable legal practise. Netgear as the vendor is simply relying on the fact that none of the authors who have written parts of the kernel against which their binary-only module links will ever make copyright claims against them

One would have hoped that Netgear did thoroughly study the Open Source market that they're trying to address. Apparently they either did not do that, or they chose to ignore the values/rules by which this community works, or they had somebody with limited understanding to advise them on this.

If anyone has a relationship with Netgear and contacts to the product manager responsible for this product, I would like to ask them for an introduction to that product manager. I would be very happy to help them understand the embarrassment and PR impact that they are putting themselves into by releasing an "Open Source" product that is in fact legally questionable and proprietary.

There are people in the various communities (like OpenWRT or OpenMoko) who have a very clear understanding of what it takes to create a true Open Source product to address the Open Source market. Why are they not asking those experts?

Netgear, you can do much better than that!

GPL case in Denmark potentially involving NDS Viasat A/S and/or Samsung

As you can at this website, somebody has discovered what seems very clear GPL violations in a device called "Samsung DSB-H670N". At the moment it is not clear who is the actual cause of the GPL violation.

However, what is outstanding about this case is that an individual on its own tries to bring the respective companies into compliance. I think it serves as a great example what somebody can do even if he is not one of the clear copyright holders and just keeps insisting enough and communicating with the companies involved.

I'm definitely looking forward to see how this turns out. gpl-violations was not involved in any sort. We're continuing with many cases at any time, so don't worry. I just thought this particular action is worth mentioning to the interested reader. Maybe some other people get inspired by it and also stand up for their rights to the source code of GPL licensed programs.

Launch of International FOSS Law Review

I'm a bit late with this, but the occasional reader of my blog might be interested to hear about the launch of ifosslr.org: International Free and Open Source Software Law Review, the only legal journal that focuses entirely on legal aspects of FOSS, which obviously includes license and specifically GPL related issues.

If you look at the editorial committee, you will realize many prominent names in this field.

It's very good to see this, as it means that more lawyers now have a resource for enhancing and sharing their knowledge about legal aspects of FOSS.

I have heard about this project from its beginning in the Legal Network of the FSFE Freedom Task Force. I know there has been a lot of (volunteer) work into the publication of this first edition/volume. Thanks to everyone involved, from authors to editors to people who took care of administrative issues.

NerdAlert podcast / radio show

Today, I was invited for an interview with the German nerd alert podcast. The show was also broadcasted live via the free public FM radio station FSK Hamburg.

Much of the interview is about my work at gpl-violations.org, but we also covered quite a bit about Openmoko as well as OpenBSC. I had a good time in the more-than-one hour interview, despite it somehow being too short to cover more about the motivation and reasons behind each of the projects....

I'm not sure if the podcast is available yet, but I suppose it will be accessible from the homepage of todays show.

ScummVM settles GPL duspute with Mistic software

As you can see from this press release, ScummVM alleged Mistic Software and its distributors from infringing the GNU GPL in some proprietary games based on ScummVM.

As it seems, this case was now settled. The press release does not make any statement on how the actual GPL issues were solved (i.e. "where is the source code"), but I would assume they would not want to settle unless the conditions of the GPL are fulfilled...

If anyone has more information, I'm interested to learn about that.

I'll be talking about GPL violations at LiSoG on July 1st in Munich

At the LiSoG meeting on July 1st, I'll be presenting on GPL violations and their international enforcement.

The LiSoG meetings have been repeatedly pointed out to me as some of the best Linux meetings out there, with a lot of professionals from the Munich area being present. I'm happy to be invited to join and present, even if it means I'll have to escape for a day from my most exciting project in Hamburg.

So if you happen to be in the Munich area and interested in meeting with a crowd of Linux people and/or interested in hearing about GPL enforcement efforts, feel free join.. But you have to to register [for free], as per instructions on the page linked above.

Palm Pre is shipping GPL incompliant

As it has been reported at many places online, the Palm Pre has started to ship as a CDMA model in the United States. However, as it seems, at this time it is not GPL compliant and thus a copyright infringement!

The Pre undoubtedly contains Linux and other GPL licensed software. So it ships with the GPL license text as well as a written offer indicating to obtain the source code. So far so good.

But if you contact the respective address, you get a response like this:

Hello Harald and thanks for your email.

We are in the process of preparing the packages and our modifications
to upload them to our open source web site - http://opensource.palm.com.
We expect to have all packages and modifications uploaded and available
to the public in about 2 weeks from today.

If you prefer to get the packages and our modifications on a CD/DVD,
please provide us with your mailing address and we will gladly ship it to
you as soon as they are available on our web site.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

All the best,
Palm Open Source Team

I think it is a bad sign that they write they are in the process of preparing the packages and our modifications. This sounds suspiciously like "we didn't think about it early enough and now we need to reproduce the soruce code that was used for actually compiling the build that is installed on the devices".

Since when did the object code exist before the source code? If you compile e.g. the Linux kernel, you _have_ the source code before you generate the object code. So you should be easily able to make the source code available at the same time as the object code!

I would have expected much more from a company like Palm. If you as a commercial entity want to use GPL licensed software, you don't have to pay one cent in licensing or any royalties. All that you have to do is to make sure you have the complete corresponding source code that was used for compiling the actual binaries available at the time you start shipping the object code.

Providing a written offer and then delaying is not good GPL compliance practise and introduces legal [and thus business] risks that could have been easily avoided. Let's hope the source code is really complete and corresponding within those two weeks. And let's hope they never repeat this with another product, or with software/firmware updates for the Pre.

Some notes about the FSFE FTF Legal Workshop

I'm currently on the train heading back home from Amsterdam, where the last two days I've been attending the 2009 Legal Workshop of the Legal Network of the Free Software Foundation Europe.

I have to admit that it was a big surprise to me that the constructive atmosphere and the quality of the presentations, panels and hallway discussions has even improved beyond the already exceptional level last year.

So even if some of the more technical readers of this blog would find it hard to agree: It can actually be a lot of fun to spend two days locked up in a conference room full of 40 lawyers :)

It was very clear that the Free Software license compliance has moved ahead quite a bit since its early days. We have had a number of independent lawyers as well as corporate legal counsels from various backgrounds, as well as some folks like myself with a very technical background but a vested interest in legal aspects of FOSS.

Let me report on some of the most exciting parts of the workshop, at least from my perspective:

An official representative of WIPO reporting on their recent considerations regarding collaborative creative work such as FOSS and the creative commons projects
Very insightful talks about software patents and the various new projects like the Open Innovation Network, LinuxDefenders, Peer-to-Patent, etc. I believe the significance of this work for the future of FOSS cannot be underestimated, no matter of which jurisdiction you are in.
This year, two legal experts from Taiwan were attending and received considerable attention given the many problems that FOSS has both legally and technically with products from the Taiwanese industry
Last, but not least, I have made some very interesting new contacts from people involved in Linux on mobile phones

Thanks a lot to the FSFE and particularly Shane's excellent work in putting the Legal Network and the conference together. Thanks also to the sponsors of the workshop, including Canonical and Black Duck.

German radio station to talk with me about GPL Violations

Tomorrow at 2pm CET, I'll have a live interview in the Breitband show at the nation wide Deutschlandradio station. The show covers the topic "Open Source and Business", and they want to talk to me for a couple of minutes about the side-effects of businesses getting involved with copyleft-style FOSS without respecting the rules as put forward by the licenses.

Talking to ASUS about preventing further GPL violations

Had a very productive meeting today with various representatives from ASUS about how to make sure they don't continue their rather unfortunate series of GPL violations in the last year.

It was a very good and productive atmosphere and I'm confident that they are now committing the required resources and effort in fixing the mostly organizational issues that prevent them every so often from fulfilling their obligations under the GPL.

But in the end, what counts are hard facts. Let's look at the situation again in one year and see what kind of progress one of Taiwans leading companies has made in this regard.

Free Software Foundation lawsuit against Cisco

As covered at lwn and other sites, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) has filed a lawsuit against Cisco. This came as a big surprise to me, but a very welcome one.

At gpl-violations.org, we had our fair share of dealing with Cisco (and particularly Linksys, a Cisco division). Never we have received any entirely satisfactory response. Sure, when you notify them of some GPL infringement, they will take some steps here and there. But in all those years, I have not seen a case where there was a thorough response. Whatever was disclosed as 'GPL source' was incomplete, didn't compile, and with the next firmware release there was again no source code for that new release. And then came the next product, sourced-in from a different OEM, and the entire process had to re-start from scratch.

Yes, they have gone and hired some engineer[s] to explicitly deal with the GPL related issues, like they have taken other steps in the right direction. But it was always superficial. Never addressing the problem at the root, i.e. have a proper in-house business process and supply chain license management to ensure the next product is not yet again a copyright infringement on GPL licensed software. It is so easy to resolve at the source, and so hard to fix later.

So the FSF's decision to take this problem to court is the most appropriate response that one can think of. A company of the size of Linksys clearly has the manpower, skill and resources - as well as the economic power on their suppliers - to once and all resolve any GPL licensing issues they might have. Not only to the bare minimum that they might think, but all the way to leave any legal grey area whatsoever. Only if there is a demonstration of a _factual_ legal risk rather than a virtual legal risk, they will get the motivation necessary to just 'stay clean' and not try to bend the license to its extremes.

So you might think "why did you (i.e. gpl-violations.org) not take it to court?" For once, I only hold copyright on certain parts of the Linux kernel, and not for large amounts of code they use. Also, a number of the particularly problematic products were not shipped into the German jurisdiction, and thus a case could not be made over here. Furthermore, many of the violations are not as clear black or white as most of the other cases that we take on. So the amount of work and resources required in such a case would probably draw away too much attention from all the other cases that we have.

But once again, I really welcome the FSF's action. It's funny how the historic cycle closes. Originally I started gpl-violations.org because I thought the FSF strategy was not aggressive/efficient enough in making Linksys/Cisco GPL compliant in the infamous WRT54G case five years ago. Now, it seems that even the tolerance and patience of the FSF has found an end.

Oh, and don't get me wrong: I never wanted to criticize the FSF for what they did back then. They had and have their own strategy of what they think about their own copyright. It's just that my strategy was different. It's up to every author or rights holder to decide which legal strategy fits best.

gpl-violations.org report in Financial Times Deutschland

The German business newspaper Financial Times Deutschland has published an article about my GPL enforcement work. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first such article in a general newspaper. All previous coverage was in publications or magazines tailored to the IT industry.

However, the content is of very low quality, and the actual facts are wrong in a number of cases. First of all, why go to a personal level and describe myself as having a 'Harry Potter hairstyle', and then calling me "a mixture between bill gates and a heavy-metal fan". I hereby deny any similarity with Bill Gates. I had my hair style like this even in the nineties (before growing it long around 1997-2000 and then cutting it again in 2001). And I listen to a lot of weird music, though heavy metal is generally not on my playlist. Anyway, what is the point of all of that? How does this help people to evaluate the risk of GPL violations?

Further down, the article has claims like "the driver software of the router also contained some lines of code that were originally written by Welte". First of all, it is the firmware, not the driver. Secondly, it is more than a couple of lines (since a couple of lines would probably not constitute a copyrightable work).

The article also explicitly states that I am not fighting for money, but "out of principle". Despite that, it also claims "The first couple of companies are shivering expecting the destruction of their book value". That's illogical.

Furthermore, there are claims that I have focused on companies that only used small amount of open source. To the contrary: The majority of the products that I've enforced so far contain 75% or more open source software. Only small portions were added by the respective vendors.

To the contrary, there was a recent article in the Berliner Morgenpost paper one of the CCC Leaders which was really well-researched and of high quality. Even that one gets some minor facts wrong, but still portrays a realistic picture.

Receiving the 2008 Open Source Award

According to reports here and here I had the honor of being the recipient of one of the the 2008 Google+O'Reilly Open Source Awards entitled Defender of Rights", presented by Google and O'Reilly.

I'm obviously very happy to see that my work has been recognized this way. Following the FSF Award in March, this is definitely a big honor. Did anyone else receive both awards in the same year so far? ;)

Thanks to the committee for the trust they put in my work. I'd also like to use this opportunity to thank again my lawyer Dr. Till Jaeger and his law firm JBB, as well as Armijn Hemel, who has been running the day-to-day gpl-violations.org operations for quite some time now.

Victory: Skype withdraws appeals case, judgement from lower court accepted

The court hearing in the "Welte vs. Skype Technologies SA" case went pretty well. Initially the court again suggested that the two parties might reach some form of amicable agreement. We indicated that this has been discussed before and we're not interested in settling for anything less than full GPL compliance.

The various arguments by Skype supporting their claim that the GPL is violating German anti-trust legislation as well as further claims aiming at the GPL being invalid or incompatible with German legislation were not further analyzed by the court. The court stated that there was not enough arguments and material brought forward by Skype to support such a claim. And even if there was some truth to that, then Skype would not be able to still claim usage rights under that very same license.

The lawyer representing Skype still continued to argue for a bit into that direction, which resulted one of the judges making up an interesting analogy of something like: "If a publisher wants to publish a book of an author that wants his book only to be published in a green envelope, then that might seem odd to you, but still you will have to do it as long as you want to publish the book and have no other agreement in place".

In the end, the court hinted twice that if it was to judge about the case, Skype would not have very high chances. After a short break, Skype decided to revoke their appeals case and accept the previous judgement of the lower court (Landgericht Muenchen I, the decision was in my favor) as the final judgement. This means that the previous court decision is legally binding to Skype, and we have successfully won what has probably been the most lengthy and time consuming case so far.

Tomorrow: Court hearing in Welte vs. Skype GPL case

Tomorrow at 10:30am at the Oberlandesgericht Muenchen (higher regional court of Munich) there will be an oral hearing in the "Welte vs. Skype Technologies SA" case. The hearing is to be held in room E.06.

This case is about a GPL violation of Skype, related to their sales of Wifi Skype phones based on the Linux operating system kernel.

I'm fighting as part of the gpl-violations.org project in enforcing the GPL against Skype since February 2007. Initially Skype didn't respond, we then applied for a preliminary injunction. That injunction was granted by the court in June 2007, but Skype chose to file an appeals case against it.

The court hearing tomorrow is exactly to debate about this appeal.

Interestingly, Skype is arguing against the validity of the GPL as a whole, asserting that it is violating anti-trust regulation and similarly strange claims.

Report from FSFE FTF Licensing and Legal workshop

I'm on seven-hour train ride back from Amsterdam, where I've been attending the first Licensing and Legal workshop of the Freedom Task Force (FTF) of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).

While having a somewhat lengthy name, the FTF has been doing great work on bringing together a large group of legal and technical experts in the field of Free Software licensing. So far this was all 'virtual', happening on mailing lists.` The meeting in Amsterdam was the first of its kind, and was a huge success.

By the nature of the FSFE, most of the people were from Europe, though there were attendees from the US and even Australia, too.

There were many interesting and surprisingly interactive workshops. It was also a good opportunity to meet Armijn (the second half of gpl-violations.org) and Shane (full-time manager of the FSFE FTF), as well as many lawyers, both corporate legal counsel and from law firms.

The interest in Armijns presentation about gpl-violations.org and Till Jaeger's overview about the legal cases we've handled over the years in Germany were very well received and there was more interest and questions than the short time permitted.

What was really good for me to see is that large consumer electronics companies in Europe and the US are now implementing internal business processes to ensure GPL and other FOSS license compliance. They're also increasingly using very clear contractual language throughout their supply chain to minimize the potential risk of any "hidden" GPL surprises in products they source from OEM/ODM companies.

Meeting between gpl-violations.org and FSFE FTF

The last two days, I enjoyed a meeting between gpl-violations.org and the FSF Europe Freedom Task Force.

Participating were Armijn Hemel (whom I have to thank to assure gpl-violations.org doesn't die while I was in Taiwan for OpenMoko), Shane Coughland (who is doing an excellent job coordinating the FTF) and myself. For a couple of hours we've also been joined by Till Jaeger, who has handled all the legal cases of gpl-violations.org so far.

This meeting has been over-due, mostly because I basically dropped off the planet for way too long time. We've discussed all the current matters regarding strategies for license enforcement, current cases, progress of the FTF legal and technical networks, as well as future plans for incorporating the gpl-violations.org project.

Yes, you have read correctly. I've been planning to do this for quite some time, and I'm confident that 2008 will finally be the year in which this happens. It's too early to talk about any details, but this is the logical step to assure both financial and legal independence of the project from my person, as well as scalability. As you might know, we have a couple of hundred reported violations and can only cherry-pick those we consider particularly important.

In any case, it was a very productive meeting. I seriously believe it has helped to make all of us work together in a coherent manner, i.e. increased productivity and effectiveness for a long-term strategy to increase the amount of free software license compliance in the industry.