Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Lawsuit charging GPL violation is first ever

In what may be the first action of its kind in the U.S., the Software Freedom Law Center has filed a lawsuit to enforce an open-source license.
The SFLC filed the suit on Wednesday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Monsoon Multimedia Inc., on behalf of the developers of BusyBox, Erik Andersen and Rob Landley. The suit charges Monsoon with using BusyBox under the GNU General Public License version 2 but failing to publish its source code. Under the terms of the license, distributors of software that uses the licensed software must make their source code available. Failing to do so is considered copyright infringement.

BusyBox, members of the public and the SFLC legal team notified Monsoon of its responsibilities, but Monsoon has not yet published the code, said Dan Ravicher, legal director at SFLC. While it's relatively common for licensees to neglect to share their code, parties typically work through the issue without having to go to court, he said.

This case is a last resort after Monsoon failed to rectify the situation, he said. The suit is necessary because from a legal perspective, copyright owners can start to lose rights if they don't act to protect them, he said.

BusyBox is a lightweight set of Unix utilities used in embedded systems. Monsoon develops digital video products, including a Slingbox-like device that enables remote TV viewing.

If BusyBox ultimately prevails in the case, under copyright law the company is entitled to damages, an injunction prohibiting continued infringement and court costs, Ravicher said.

He believes this is the first case filed in the U.S. in order to enforce an open-source license.

The GPL Violations Project is a group that actively pursues license violators and has brought at least one case to court in Germany. Earlier this year, one of the project's team members publicly revealed violations that Cisco Systems Inc. made in its phone previously called the iPhone. Cisco subsequently corrected the problem.

Monsoon did not reply to a request for comment.


The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

(networkworld.com)

Vista Backlash: Microsoft Quietly Lets Vista Users Revert to XP

Hate Vista? If your PC is running Microsoft Windows Vista Business or Windows Ultimate and you're fed up with the OS you may be able to ditch Vista for XP Pro. Microsoft is quietly allowing you to downgrade to Windows XP Pro.

Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo are just a few of the system manufacturers offering downgrades. Each of these PC makers offer an XP Pro recovery disc to those who request one that can be used to revert a Vista machine to XP Pro.

Dell, HP, and Lenovo customers can request a Windows XP Pro recovery disc to be included with their purchase of a Vista machine - should they want to revert in the future. Customers who already have purchased a Vista-PC can request an XP Pro recovery CD for between $15 to $20 by calling technical support.

Different Policies for Different Vendors

A Lenovo Website for downgrading to XP Pro states: "For a limited time only Lenovo customers that have Windows Vista Business or Ultimate installed on their machines will have the chance to purchase a Windows XP Recovery CD."

Dell small business sales told me if I purchased a system with either the Vista Business or Ultimate operating system I could pay an extra $20 to have XP Pro recovery discs shipped with the machine. Dell told me I wouldn't need an extra Windows license for the XP Pro software.

HP business sale's staff described a near identical downgrade plan, except for the fact the XP Pro recovery discs would not include a license to activate the OS.

The desire to revert to XP Pro from Vista is a business trend, not a consumer trend, says Chris Swenson, director, software industry analysis, for market research firm NPD Group.

"Retail consumers are not requesting to go back to XP," Swenson says. Businesses are more sensitive to upgrades because Vista requires a more robust computer to run programs at peak performance. Vista's requires better graphics and memory than XP, forcing companies to spend more on systems, he says.

Additionally some customers and businesses have complained about Vista's lack of support for software and hardware designed originally for XP.

(PCWorld)