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Bradley M. Kuhn - 10 years ago 2014-02-16 22:23:24
bkuhn@fsf.org
* Wrote a few sections
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enforcement-case-studies.tex
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@@ -117,6 +117,96 @@ will also find the course very helpful.
 
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\chapter{Overview of FSF's GPL Compliance Lab}
 

	
 
The GPL is a Free Software license with legal teeth.  Unlike licenses like
 
the X11-style or various BSD licenses, GPL (and by extention, the LGPL) is
 
designed to defend as well as grant freedom.  We saw in the last course
 
that GPL uses copyright law as a mechanism to grant all the key freedoms
 
essential in Free Software, but also to ensure that those freedoms
 
propogate throughout the distribution chain of the software.
 

	
 
\section{Termination Begins Enforcement}
 

	
 
As we have learned, the assurance that Free Software under GPL remains
 
Free Software is accomplished through various terms of GPL: \S 3 ensures
 
that binaries are always accompanied with source; \S 2 ensures that the
 
sources are adequate, complete and usable; \S 6 and \S 7 ensures that the
 
license of the software is always GPL for everyone, and that no other
 
legal agreements or licenses trump GPL; \S 4 ensures that the GPL can be
 
enforced.
 

	
 
In fact, \S 4 is where we begin our discussion of GPL enforcement.  This
 
clause is where the legal teeth of the license are rooted.  As a copyright
 
license, GPL governs only the activities governed by copyright law ---
 
copying, modifying and redistributing computer software.  Unlike most
 
copyright licenses, GPL gives wide grants of permission for engaging with
 
these activities.  Such permissions continue and all parties may exercise
 
until such time as one party violates the terms of GPL\@.  At the moment
 
of such a violation --- the engaging of copying, modifying or
 
redistributing in ways not permitted by GPL --- \S 4 is invoked.
 

	
 
Specifically, \S 4 terminates the violators rights to continue engaging
 
in the permissions that otherwise granted by GPL\@.  Effectively, their
 
permission go back to the copyright defaults --- no permission to copy,
 
modify, or redistribute the work.  Meanwhile, \S 5 points out that if
 
if the violator has no rights under GPL --- as they will not once they
 
have violated it --- then they otherwise have no right and are prohibited
 
by copyright law from engaging in the activities of copying, modifying
 
and distributing.
 

	
 
\section{Ongoing Violations}
 

	
 
In conjuction with \S 4's termination of violators' rights, there is one
 
final industry fact is added to the mix: rarely, does on engage in a
 
single, solitary act of copying, distributing or modifying software.
 
Almost always, a violator will have legitimately acquired a copy a GPL'd
 
program --- either made modifications or not --- and then begun a ongoing
 
activity of distributing that work.  For example, the violator may have
 
put the software in boxes and sold them at stores.  Or perhaps the
 
software was put up for download on the Internet.  Regardless of the
 
delivery mechanism, violators almost always are engaged in {\em ongoing\/}
 
violation of GPL\@.
 

	
 
In fact, when we discover a GPL violation that occured only once --- for
 
example, a user group who distributed copies of a GNU/Linux system without
 
source at a meeting once --- we rarely pursue it with a high degree of
 
dilligence.  In our minds, that is an educational problem, and unless the
 
user group becomes a repeat offender (as it turns out, the never do) we
 
simply send an FAQ entry that best explains how user groups can most
 
easily comply with GPL, and send them on there merry way.
 

	
 
It is only the cases of {\em ongoing\/} GPL violation that warrant our
 
active attention.  We vehemently pursue those cases where dozens, hundreds
 
or thousands of customers are receiving software that is out of
 
compliance, and the company continually puts for sale (or distributes
 
gratis as a demo) software distributions that include GPL'd components out
 
of compliance.  Our goal is to maximize the impact of enforcement and
 
educate industries who are making a mistake on a large scale.
 

	
 
In addition, such ongoing violation shows that a particular company is
 
committed to a GPL'd product line.  We are thrilled to learn that someone
 
is benefitting from Free Software, and we understand that sometimes they
 
have become confused about the rules of the road.  Rather than merely
 
giving us a post mortem to perform on a past mistake, an ongoing violation
 
gives us an active opportunity to educate a new contributor the GPL'd
 
commons about proper procedures to contribute to the community.
 

	
 
Our central goal is not, in fact, to merely clear up particular violation.
 
Over time, we hope that our compliance lab will be out of business.  We
 
seek to educate the businesses that engage in commerce related to GPL'd
 
software to obey the rules of the road and allow them to operate freely
 
under them.  Just as a traffic officer would not revel in reminding people
 
which side of the road to drive in, so we do not revel in violations.  By
 
contrast, we revel in the successes of educating an ongoing violator about
 
GPL so that GPL compliance becomes a second-nature matter, and they join
 
the GPL ecosystem as contributors.
 

	
 
\section{First Contact}
 

	
 
The Free Software community is built on a structure of voluntary
 
cooperation and mutual help.
 

	
 

	
 

	
 
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\chapter{Case Study A}
 

	
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@@ -126,10 +216,28 @@ will also find the course very helpful.
 
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\chapter{Case Study C}
 

	
 

	
 
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\chapter{Case Study D}
 

	
 
Reminder about how organizations themselves work.  We don't have to
 
educate the organization, just call their attention to something.
 

	
 
Working on DVD cases -- interested in the question on how one plays DVD
 
on one ligitimate owns, if one uses GNU/Linux give the licensing
 
structure of DVD content scrambling system.
 

	
 
An article from the IBM guy who had arranged to have DVD player
 
application by a vendor for includsion with IBM distributed based T20s.
 

	
 
They shimed the kernel, it was a GPL problem.
 

	
 
Couple of weeks, we've looked into it, and we're going back to the
 
contractor and having them redo the thing to comply with GPL.
 

	
 
contaminate a video output port with MacroVision.
 

	
 
kernel mods 
 

	
 
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\chapter{Good Practices for Compliance}
 
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