Discussion April 2004

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28 participants
27 discussions

Preliminary Injunction for GPL Infringement Granted by German Court
by Seth Johnson 18 Apr '04

18 Apr '04

-------- Original Message -------- Subject: pho: Munich Court Grants Preliminary Injuction For GPL Violations Date: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 23:23:39 EDT From: StpHinkle(a)aol.com To: pho(a)onehouse.com > From http://www.netfilter.org/news/2004-04-15-sitecom-gpl.html Of interest to editors and journalists covering: Linux, Free Software, Open Source, Copyright Law MUNICH COURT GRANTS PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION FOR INFRINGING USE OF GPL LICENSED SOFTWARE BERLIN, Germany - Apr. 14, 2004 -- The Munich district court granted a preliminary injuction against Sitecom Germany GmbH (http://www.sitecom.com/). This injunctive relieve has been applied by the netfilter/iptables project (http://www.netfilter.org/). Sitecom is offering a wireless access router product (WL-122) based on software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), developed by the netfilter/iptables project. The GNU GPL is a license commonly used for many free software projects, such as the Linux Operating System Kernel. The GPL licenses software free of cost, but requires any redistributor to provide the full source code. According to the court order, Sitecom did not fulfill the obligations imposed by the GNU General Public License covering the netfilter/iptables software. In particular, Sitecom did not make any source code offering or include the GPL license terms with their products. Following a warning notice, Sitecom refused to sign a declaration to cease and desist. Thus, the netfilter/iptables project was compelled to ask the court for a preliminnary injuction, banning Sitecom from distributing its product, unless Sitecom complies with all obligations imposed by the GNU GPL. "To my knowledge, this is the first case in which a judicial decision has been decreed on the applicability and the validity of the GNU GPL", says Dr. Till Jaeger, partner of the Berlin and Munich based law firm JBB Rechtsanwaelte (http://www.jbb.de/) that represented the netfilter/iptables project in the litigation. This preliminary injunction follows a series of out-of-court settlement agreements that the netfilter/iptables project has concluded within a short period of time. When asked about the reasons for the sudden rise in legal pressure for GPL compliance, Harald Welte, Chairman of the Netfilter Core Team states: "We are not in any way opposing the commercial use of free and open source software. Specifically, there is no legal risk of using GPL licensed software in commercial products. But vendors have to comply with the license terms, just like they would have to with any other, even proprietary software license agreement." About the netfilter/iptables project The netfilter/iptables project provides state-of-the-art network security software for Linux firewalling, packet filter and network address translation (NAT), distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Being part of the linux operating system kernel, the software is running on virtually every Linux installation. For more information on the project or the software, visit http://www.netfilter.org/ Media contact: netfilter core team Harald Welte Phone: +49-30-24033902 Email: laforge(a)netfilter.org -- DRM is Theft! We are the Stakeholders! New Yorkers for Fair Use http://www.nyfairuse.org [CC] Counter-copyright: http://realmeasures.dyndns.org/cc I reserve no rights restricting copying, modification or distribution of this incidentally recorded communication. Original authorship should be attributed reasonably, but only so far as such an expectation might hold for usual practice in ordinary social discourse to which one holds no claim of exclusive rights.

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Is SystemC license compatible with the GPL ?
by Matthieu MOY 16 Apr '04

16 Apr '04

[ Email already sent twice to gnu(a)gnu.org, and once to this list, without answer. As I had put an attachment, I don't know if it reached you ... If I'm not posting to the right list, please let me know and tell me where I could get an answer ] Hi, I've developped a piece of software using GCC as a C++ front-end and the SystemC library. The SystemC license can be found from www.systemc.org, and here: http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/vrac/License.pdf I would like to know wether it is legal to distribute this software and wether it is possible to do so under a free license. The architecture of the software is as follow : +------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ | | | | | | | A | | B | | C | | | | | | | | SystemC |<--1-->| My software |<--2-->| GCC | | | | | | | +------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ Where <--n--> can be either a static or a dynamic link. I would like to use as permissive licenses as possible. Ideally, I would like the following : A = SystemC license B = LGPL C = GPL Is this possible ? (From what I understood, I can distribute A+B and let the user download C and compile A+B+C himself) If not, do you have a solution ? Or maybe, the following would fit : A = Dual license SystemC + (L)GPL B = (L)GPL C = GPL ? Thanks for your help, -- Matthieu

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Is SystemC license compatible with the GPL ?
by Matthieu MOY 16 Apr '04

16 Apr '04

[ Email already sent twice to gnu(a)gnu.org, without answer ] Hi, I've developped a piece of software using GCC as a C++ front-end and the SystemC library. The SystemC license can be found from www.systemc.org (And as an attachment of this email) I would like to know wether it is legal to distribute this software and wether it is possible to do so under a free license. The architecture of the software is as follow : +------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ | | | | | | | A | | B | | C | | | | | | | | SystemC |<--1-->| My software |<--2-->| GCC | | | | | | | +------------+ +-------------+ +-------------+ Where <--n--> can be either a static or a dynamic link. I would like to use as permissive licenses as possible. Ideally, I would like the following : A = SystemC license B = LGPL C = GPL Is this possible ? (From what I understood, I can distribute A+B and let the user download C and compile A+B+C himself) If not, do you have a solution ? Or maybe, the following would fit : A = Dual license GPL + (L)GPL B = (L)GPL C = GPL ? Thanks for your help, -- Matthieu ------------------------------------------------- envoyé via Webmail/IMAG !

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Strong Opposition to Attempts to Legalize Patents on Software in Europe
by Seth Johnson 14 Apr '04

14 Apr '04

Today, strong opposition is being expressed to attempts to legalize software patents in Europe. A demonstration is taking place in Brussels today and tomorrow, along with a "legislative benchmarking session" in the EU Parliament addressing the nature and status of software and proposals that have arisen to legalize patents on software in Europe. This is important because if software patents are stopped in Europe, this will initiate a much more forthright addressing of numerous policies related to digital technologies. SUMMARY: In Europe, patents do not cover software. The European Patent Convention of 1973 specifically excludes "computer programs as such" from patentability. However, over the last few years, patent professionals for particular industries and within the European Patent Office (EPO) have interpreted "as such" in extremely creative ways in order to circumvent this condition. In response, the EU Parliament recently provided clear language defining the distinction between software and valid subject matter for patents through detailed amendments to a "Directive on Computer-Implemented Inventions" that had been presented to them for ratification by the EU Council and Commission. The EU Council has entirely eliminated this language from the Directive in a second round of legislative activity. Demonstrators are gathered today and tomorrow in Brussels as a result. MORE INFO: http://demo.ffii.org/press.php http://plone.ffii.org/events/2004/bxl04 http://swpat.ffii.org/news/index.en.html http://swpat.ffii.org/analysis/index.en.html Slashdot: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/10/1627239&tid= http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/12/1757243&tid=

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compagnies comptabilities
by julien 14 Apr '04

14 Apr '04

Hello, I tried to find a way to find free software for comptability for the compagnies. There's plenty of project for non-profit organisation or personnal comptability but almost nothing for the compagnies comptability. Also the difficulties, is that each country have their own fiscality... Do you know some people working on free sofwtare for this issue... and specially in France... It's difficult, when you meet "comptability specialist" and you propose them to work under free software, find a 100% GPL's soft for compagnies comptability, they always told you that there's nothing under gnu/linux or very expensive (which is kind of true), more than the micro$oft one and you finally closed back to "CIEL"... that's why I write to you to see if there some open way to this problem. thanks a lot!!! julien

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Announcing: XOrg Foundation Releases X Window System X11R6.7
by Leon Shiman 07 Apr '04

07 Apr '04

RE: Announcing the first official X Window System release by the XOrg Foundation, at http://www.X.Org . Three attached files contain identical versions of X.Org's official announcement in the following formats: .html .pdf .txt A fourth file, XOrg_Press_Release_6Apr04-short.txt, contains a concise version of the announcement, if your space is limited. If you have questions, you may contact: Leon Shiman, for The XOrg Foundation, at: Shiman Associates Inc (00)1.617.277.0087 leon(a)shiman.com X.Org Foundation Announces Formation and First Release The new X.Org Foundation will help drive the X Window System to support state-of-the-art desktop technologies San Francisco, CA., April 6, 2004 - X.Org Foundation today announces their first release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation in January of this year. The new X.Org release, called X Window System Version 11 Release 6.7 (X11R6.7), builds on the work of the X.Org X11R6.6 and XFree86TM Project Inc. V4.4RC2 releases to combine many of the latest developments from a large number of the participants and companies working with the X Window community. The X Window System X11R6.7 release can be found at http://www.x.org/. We have made great progress in creating a framework upon which further development of the X Window System can be based, agreed the Interim Board of the Foundation. We expect to provide the desktop community with at least two more releases of the X Window System before the end of this year to encompass all of the new technologies and ideas that we are developing. This release marks the return to community development of the X Window System under governance open to all contributors for the first time since the founding of the X Consortium in 1988, said Jim Gettys, co-founder of the X Window System, Interim X.Org Foundation board member and member of the research staff of HP Labs. We welcome the formation of the X.Org Foundation and are looking forward to support this group to bring the work on the X Window System to a new technological level, said Egbert Eich, X Window System developer at Novell's SUSE LINUX business unit. Matthias Ettrich, Director of Software Development at Trolltech, said As a multi-platform GUI toolkit vendor, we appreciate the value of a powerful underlying windowing system, and as such, we are excited about the direction X.Org is heading. We are very much looking forward to supporting new technologies around X, and we will do our share to make the advances of the platform accessible to software developers. Being an underlying technology to the most popular desktops on all GNU Systems, in particular GNOME and KDE, the X Window System is indeed an essential part of most Free Software operating systems, said Georg C.F. Greve, president of the FSF Europe. It helps many users to access and enjoy the freedom of Free Software. We are glad that X.Org will from now on watch over this enabling technology. Red Hat is pleased to be working with the new X.Org Foundation to build a vibrant open source community around X Window System innovation. Look for X11R6.7 in the upcoming Fedora Core 2 and future Red Hat Enterprise Linux products, said Havoc Pennington, desktop development manager at Red Hat. As one of the largest GNU/Linux distribution projects in the world, the Debian Project is delighted to see that freedom and diversity are alive and well in the X technology sector. We're also delighted that the X.Org Foundation is dedicated to retaining the licensing model that has made the X Window System an enduring success, said Branden Robinson of the Debian GNU/Linux Project. Like us, the X.Org Foundation is a member-driven organization devoted to Free Software. We cannot help but be enthusiastic about them and the work they're doing for the X Window System and Free Software communities alike. An open source project works best with a large community of active contributors. OSI welcomes the return of X to open source development by the entire community. I'm looking forward to contributing myself, said Russell Nelson, Vice-President of the Open Source Initiative. Cygwin/X is benefiting heavily from the community-building spirit of the X.Org Foundation and their open development environment. We are pleased to be basing our releases on the good work of the X.Org Foundation, said Harold L Hunt II of the Cygwin/X project. The XonX Project is very pleased that the X.Org Foundation has been eager to support Darwin and Mac OS X. X11R6.7 adds new features that will be appreciated by many Mac OS X users, said Torrey Lyons, XonX Project Founder. Membership of the X.Org Foundation is free to all participants. Applications for membership are now being accepted, and active participants in the further development of the X Window System are invited to visit: http://www.x.org/XOrg_Foundation_Membership.html to complete a membership application. Participation in the Foundations Sponsor Group is also available to those who wish to financially support the activities The X.Org Foundation. Current Sponsors include Hewlett Packard, IBM, and SUN Microsystems. About The Foundation Release X11R6.7 is the first official X.Org Foundation release. It is the successor release to X11R6.6 from X.Org. To assure consistency with industry and community requirements and practices, it was developed from the X.Org X11R6.6 code base and the XFree86 V4.4RC2 code base, with the addition of bug fixes and enhancements. These enhancements include: new IPv6 functionality, Freetype V2.1.7, fontconfig V2.2.2, Xft V2.1.6, Xcursor V1.1.2, and Xrender V0.8.4, with corresponding changes in documentation and notices. Additional source and binary releases are anticipated during 2004. About The X Window System The X Window System provides the only common networked windowing environment bridging the heterogeneous platforms in today's computing. The X Window System is one of the most successful open-source, collaborative technologies developed to date and is the standard graphical window system for the Linux® and UNIX® operating systems. The inherent independence of the X Window System from the operating system, the network and the hardware, as well as its successful interoperability, have made it widely available and deployed with more than 30 million users worldwide. All major hardware vendors support the X Window System and many third parties provide technologies for integrating X Window System applications into the networked computer or personal computer environments including Microsoft Windows®, UNIX, Linux and Mac OS® X. Further, thousands of software developers provide X Window System applications, and with the continued growth of Linux and the emergence of Mac OS X, the number of users is growing rapidly. About X.Org Foundation X.Org Foundation L.L.C. is a recently formed Delaware company organized to operate as a scientific charity under IRS code 501(c)(3), chartered to develop and execute effective strategies that provide worldwide stewardship of the X Window System technology and standards. The group is currently managed by an Interim Board of Directors that includes: Stuart Anderson (Free Standards Group), Egbert Eich (SUSE), Jim Gettys (HP), Georg Greve (Free Software Foundation Europe), Stuart Kreitman (SUN Microsystems), Kevin Martin (Red Hat), Jim McQuillan (Linux Terminal Server Project), Leon Shiman (Shiman Associates) and Jeremy White (Code Weavers). The website for the X.Org Foundation can be found at http://www.x.org/. Note to editors: UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries. LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. XFree86 is a trademark of The XFree86 Project, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac OS is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other company names are trademarks of the registered owners. X.Org Foundation Announces Formation and First Release The new X.Org Foundation will help drive the X Window System to support state-of-the-art desktop technologies San Francisco, CA., April 6, 2004 - X.Org Foundation announces their first release of the X Window System since the formation of the Foundation in January. The new X.Org release, X Window System Version 11 Release 6.7 (X11R6.7), builds on the work of the X.Org X11R6.6 and XFree86TM Project Inc. V4.4RC2 releases and can be found at http://www.x.org/. The Interim Board of the Foundation expects to provide the desktop community with at least two more releases of the X Window System before the end of this year to encompass all of the new technologies and ideas the foundation is developing. X11R6.7 is the first official X.Org Foundation release. Enhancements include: new IPv6 functionality, Freetype V2.1.7, fontconfig V2.2.2, Xft V2.1.6, Xcursor V1.1.2, and Xrender V0.8.4, with corresponding changes in documentation and notices. Membership of the X.Org Foundation is free to all participants. Applications for membership are now being accepted, and active participants in the further development of the X Window System are invited to visit: http://www.x.org/XOrg_Foundation_Membership.html to complete a membership application. Participation in the Foundation's Sponsor Group is also available to those who wish to financially support the activities The X.Org Foundation. Current Sponsors include Hewlett Packard, IBM, and SUN Microsystems. About The X Window System The inherent independence of the X Window System from the operating system, the network and the hardware, as well as its successful interoperability, have made it widely available, deployed by more than 30 million users worldwide. All major hardware vendors support the X Window System and many third parties provide technologies for integrating X Window System applications into the networked computer or personal computer environments including Microsoft Windows(r), UNIX, Linux and Mac OS(r) X. About X.Org Foundation X.Org Foundation L.L.C. is a recently formed Delaware company organized to operate as a scientific charity under IRS code 501(c)(3), chartered to develop and execute effective strategies that provide worldwide stewardship of the X Window System technology and standards. The group is currently managed by an Interim Board of Directors that includes: Stuart Anderson (Free Standards Group), Egbert Eich (SUSE), Jim Gettys (HP), Georg Greve (Free Software Foundation Europe), Stuart Kreitman (SUN Microsystems), Kevin Martin (Red Hat), Jim McQuillan (Linux Terminal Server Project), Leon Shiman (Shiman Associates) and Jeremy White (Code Weavers). The website for the X.Org Foundation can be found at http://www.x.org/. Note to editors: UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the US and other countries. LINUX is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. XFree86 is a trademark of The XFree86 Project, Inc. Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac OS is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other company names are trademarks of the registered owners.

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GPL software on book CD
by RLandgrebe＠gmx.net 06 Apr '04

06 Apr '04

Hello, I'm going to write a book and I want to include GPL software on the book CD. I already read the GPL and it seems to me, that it would be completely OK, when I include not only the binaries but the source code of the GPL software. My questions: - Is it right? - Do I need to include the GPL license on CD? Thank you for your attention, R. Landgrebe -- +++ NEU bei GMX und erstmalig in Deutschland: TÜV-geprüfter Virenschutz +++ 100% Virenerkennung nach Wildlist. Infos: http://www.gmx.net/virenschutz

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Discussion April 2004