Re: Has Corel been violating the GPL for approx 6 months?
On Fri, Aug 11, 2000 at 06:12:35AM +0000, Mr Smith wrote:
> Has former copies of the Corel LinuxOS Open Circulation
> CD-ROM violated the General Public License?
>
> This seems like a straight forward question but one that
> Corel has beat around the bush in answering.
You know I'd be more likely to take your concerns seriously if you
didn't hide behind psuedonyms and throwaway accounts.
> Part 4: The excuses
>
> Some popular excuses from Corel employees as to why it
> shouldn't matter which aspects of the General Public License
> they choose to ignore:
>
> - Corel is an important contributor to open source.
This is true: much of WINE's progress in the past year or two has come
from Corel. Corel's not just providing code to WINE, they're also
providing servers and support.
> - Corel will continue to be an important contributor to open
> source.
Assuming they stay afloat, but that's a different question...
> - Why do you need Corel to provide a written offer anyways?
That seems to be the crux of the issue. Your gripe is that they don't
include a written offer for the source? They certainly -do- provide the
source (either on a different CD or via their web site or even
apt-get'table).
Certainly they -should- provide such an offer. Is it worth long
flames and threats for that? Not likely. As my mom always said, "You
catch more flies with honey than with vinegar." A -polite- request to
Corel pointing out that the sleeve of the CD should have the 'you have
the right to source code' would probably get it added on the next
print run.
> - This problem only effects the Open Circulation flavor of
> Corel LinuxOS which is just a small number of the LinuxOS
> distributed.
Right: the vast majority of people that get Corel get it as part of a
boxed set: that box -includes- a CD with source to everything that Corel
can legally supply source for. (Ie, no source to Netscape or BRU or
Civ:CTP, but that's not in Corel's control.) It also includes that
handy "Open Circulation" CD that only has Free Software on it, and Corel
encourages people to share that with their friends.
> - Corel doesn't intend to hide the source code.
I didn't think they did hide it.
> - Corel provides the source code on their web site.
Which shows that their intentions are valid and that you're nitpicking.
Again, YES, it's important that they provide the offer for source. But
even more important is providing the source itself. (Offers are
meaningless if they're not followed through, and superfluous if it's
already standard operating procedure.)
Write a -POLITE- (go read the Advocacy-HOWTO again) letter to Corel
and tell them your concerns. You may want to Cc RMS on the letter as
well (for two reasons -- one, you may be more polite when you know RMS
will see it, and two, if you are polite RMS will certainly join you in
your campaign).
> Since talking privately in email with Corel has proven
> unfruitful (they refuse to even respond AT ALL now). I
> would like to explore a project among GPL developers to file
> a lawsuit against Corel. I intend to prove that despite the
> fact the GPL provides a method of redistribution for free
> that the package still has a monitary value to it and is
> still a copyrighted work. Further, I would like to prove
> that my own copyrighted contributions which where on the
> Corel LinuxOS Open Circulation CD-ROM have a value not less
> than $1 per copy. One of the flavors of redistribution
> Corel choose did not fall withen the licensing method of
> doing redistribution for free, so for those violations of
> license should be entitled to damages/royalities. I would
> be willing to explore a class action lawsuit if other
> contributors to GPL packages which ship on the Corel Open
> Circulation CD-ROM wish to also collect royalities for
> any unlicensed redistribution conducted by Corel. However,
> it is not my intention to make money off this. Any money
> rewarded which doesn't go to lawyer fee will hopefully be
> donated to the Free Software Foundation. Presently, it is
> my belief that legal action is the only way to get Corel to
> provide an acceptable responce to the fact that violating
> the GPL for six months is not acceptable regardless of how
> "important" or your "intentions" might be.
Good luck proving that the coasters handed out at shows have a monetary
value. If you succeed on that point, I've got stacks of AOL disks that
I'm -sure- must be worth something....
--
Brian Moore | Of course vi is God's editor.
Sysadmin, C/Perl Hacker | If He used Emacs, He'd still be waiting
Usenet Vandal | for it to load on the seventh day.
Netscum, Bane of Elves.
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