From bkuhn at ebb.org  Thu Sep  3 19:19:24 2009
From: bkuhn at ebb.org (Bradley M. Kuhn)
Date: Thu, 03 Sep 2009 13:19:24 -0400
Subject: GPLv2 to v3 upgrade and "further restrictions" issue
In-Reply-To: <369F44838B07C34DA00950C9B075AFE4470109C85F@HVXMSP1.us.lmco.com>
	(Allan Hardy's message of "Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:11:33 -0400")
References: <20090824114921.GA4330@thing.nowhere>
	<30dfe2a80908240744y11728ad4qa691b977ae0383a7@mail.gmail.com>
	<20090824165034.GA4571@thing.nowhere> <4A92CEFF.8010704@fe.uni-lj.si>
	<87ab1naolo.fsf@ebb.org>
	<369F44838B07C34DA00950C9B075AFE4470109C85F@HVXMSP1.us.lmco.com>
Message-ID: <87ljkwvtcz.fsf@ebb.org>

[ Sorry, was busy on another work the last few weeks and I am just
 picking up this thread. ]
I wrote:
>>> These types of contradictory licenses have always been a problem in
>>> the Free Software community.
Allan Hardy replied on the 26th of August:
> Isn't this a violation of the GPL, especially the spirit and intent?

Henrik's response was really good on this point.  It certainly is
against the spirit and intent of the GPL, but it isn't usually a
violation of the license, at least not in the USA (at least in my IANAL
understanding).  A copyright holder is always permitted to issue a
license that makes no sense; they hold the exclusive power to decide the
copyright license.  That license can be self-contradictory, confusing,
or just plain stupid and thus fail to give you proper rights to copy,
modify and redistribute the software in the way that you expected.

> They have violated the GPL v2 itself, they will have a weak position.

They may not have violated v2, and probably haven't.  There are many
questions to ask before that could be determined, the most important of
which would be: Is their company the sole copyright holder?

> Your leveraging v3 and it would be interesting if they went to the
> SFLC/FSF to get support.

I work for SFLC in my day job, and with my day job hat briefly on, I'll
say that if you are a non-profit Free Software developer, feel free to
write to <help at softwarefreedom.org> to ask for help.
-- 

   -- bkuhn


From fw at deneb.enyo.de  Thu Sep 24 19:55:37 2009
From: fw at deneb.enyo.de (Florian Weimer)
Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:55:37 +0000
Subject: Perle IOLAN
Message-ID: <87d45gcjmu.fsf@mid.deneb.enyo.de>

At <http://www.perle.com/downloads/server_sds_sts_rackmount.shtml>
(site may require Javascript), there's a firmware blob offered for
download:

<http://www.perle.com/downloads/software/IOLAN/IOLAN_Rack_v4.0.G5.bin>

This seems to include a PowerPC GNU/Linux system (with Linux, busybox,
uclibc, OpenSSL, wget, one of the *swans).  Source code and the usual
notices are absent.

A request for source code sent to <ptac at perle.com> hasn't been
answered within several business days.


From philip-gplviolations at shadowmagic.org.uk  Mon Sep 28 18:15:24 2009
From: philip-gplviolations at shadowmagic.org.uk (Philip Kendall)
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:15:24 +0100
Subject: GPL violation by ZX Gamer iPhone application
Message-ID: <20090928161524.GN31466@sphinx.int.mythic-beasts.com>

Hi all.

My attention's been drawn to the ZX Gamer app currently available in the
iPhone App Store <http://www.rogerboesch.com/zx-gamer-3gs/>

What is obvious from a trivial inspection of the code is that it is in
fact a repackaged version of the GPL licensed JSSpeccy
<http://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org/>; see
<http://jorallan.livejournal.com/9645.html> for the most obvious
evidence.

I've been in contact with Roger Boesch, the developer of the app, but he
is refusing to admit that his application is in fact JSSpeccy, and so is
refusing to provide the source code.

The legal position here is that I am the author and copyright holder of
the Z80 emulation core used in Fuse <http://fuse-emulator.sf.net/> and
it is that code was taken and used in a modified form by Matthew
Westcott in JSSpeccy.

What are the options at this stage for moving this forwards?
Unfortunately, I'm now at the point where I don't think I can trust
anything Mr Boesch says on this subject: as far as I can see, he has
consistently lied about the origins of this application.

Thanks for any advice,

-- 
  Philip Kendall <philip at shadowmagic.org.uk>
  http://www.shadowmagic.org.uk/