Question regarding GPL and membership requirements for a standards body

[Akiba]

Hi Allan. 

According to your argument, then Bluetooth would also be incompatible since
it requires that any users of the Bluetooth spec become members of the
Bluetooth SIG. The membership is free at the lowest tier. However there is a
Bluetooth Linux project and it looks like it has been deemed compatible with
the GPL. 

 

Akiba

FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project

http://www.freaklabs.org

  _____  

From: Hardy, Allan [mailto:allan.hardy at lmco.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 10:53 AM
To: Akiba; legal at lists.gpl-violations.org
Subject: RE: Question regarding GPL and membership requirements for a
standards body

 

>> The issue is that the GPL requires that software must be provided free of
licensing fees as mentioned in clause 2-c of the GPL v2:

 

Zigbee terms are not GPL compliant we agree on that.

I respectfully disagree that it is because of a membership fee.  Requiring
membership at all is enough to be in conflict with GPL.

 

Assume Zigbee membership is free:

 

If I took a standard GPL product and embedded it in my hardware Device what
are my GPL requirements?  - Primarily to provide source code for the GPL
components.

 

If I take a Zigbee embedded in a linux distro, then put in my device what
are my requirements? -  To become a member of Zigbee alliance, to follow
what ever additional requirements are put on members, and to provide source
code for GPL components.

 

The Zigbee terms are not GPL compatible because it discriminates against a
class of users, as example commercial hardware vendors, it puts additional
restrictions on my ability to use the GPL product, takes away freedoms of
use I had, etc.

 

The fact that it also involves $ is a secondary issue, imho, not the main
issue.    Zigbee could drop their fee to $1 or $0 and it still would be GPL
incompatible.

 

>> This was the central point in the issue that was discussed regarding the
spec's compatibility with GPL'd software. 

 

Discussed where?  Even if it was the central point of the discussion, it is
not the central point of GPL incompatibility.

At least that's my central point.  : )

 

Allan

 

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