Possible GPL violation in Avantis Content Cache servers

[Harald Welte]

On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 09:40:20PM +0000, Tony Whitmore wrote:
> Malcolm Bain wrote:
> > Hi Tony
> > 
> > Interesting analysis - just a couple of quick "off the cuff" comments on
> > a Monday morning...
> 
> Thanks for taking the time to read it.
> 
> > -- you say "/As wget is used as the mirroring and pre-caching system, it
> > is an integral part of the appliance. It cannot be used separately from
> > the rest of the product (as there is no command line interface)wget is
> > an integral part of the appliance" / If this is so,  this would seem to
> > oblige Avantis to distribute all the package (in so far as any part
> > cannot be considered a "separate independent work") under the GPL. The
> > same may apply for Setacl - though I don't know the system architecture.
> 
> That's one possible interpretation, certainly, although I understood
> that the GPL only required linked software to be released under the GPL.
>  (Although I also understand that this is also an area of much debate
> wrt the GPL.)

Well, those questions are really hard, and at this time not really the
important part.  Before going into areas with different levels of greay,
let's look at what's black and white:

As you have correctly observed, GNU wget, OpenSSL and SetACL are
distirbuted in violation of the respective license terms.  

In your position I would try to inform the respective copyright holders.
For wget, contact license-violations at gnu.org (and you'll probably get a
reply from David Turner there.  If you don't, get back to me).

Also, notifying the infringing UK company about their license
violations, and informing them in a friendly way that you have informed
the respective copyright holders should be good.

Such notifications are best sent to the legal department of the
respective company.

> Is it the case that other appliances using GPL software require the
> whole thing to be released under the GPL? It this the case for other
> appliances like Tivo or TomTom?

no, at least not to the majority of the gpl's interpretations.

> > -- It is not a question of whether wget or setacl work as independent
> > programs from ContentCache - it is the other way round: if ContentCache
> > doesn't work without these two programs (or other GPL software), there
> > would be strong arguments to say that they are not independent and
> > therefore should all fall under the GPL...

I don't believe in such an argument.  Copyright doesn't extend to
independent, separate works - no matter what you try to read into the
GPL.  If one is not derived from the other, you will have a hard time
arguing that the 'other' part (contantcache) has to be GPL.

> I have legal access to the software as the systems were distributed by
> the LEA (Local Education Authority) to schools. As explained in the
> page, the User Agent string put me onto the problem, the rest was done
> by booting from a Knoppix CD and investigating the contents of the hard
> disk.

If The software vendor doesn't respond appropriateyl, it might also be
worthwhile informing the LEA about the copyright infringements in that
piece of software that they distribute.  I'm not familiar with UK law,
but in Germany they would knowingly infringe the license if they
continue distributing the proxy product after having received such
notification.

Cheers,

p.s.: I'' be on holidays from Feb-27 to Mar 21, so don't expect any
further replies in that time.

-- 
- Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org>          	        http://gnumonks.org/
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