

Red Hat's new patent counterclaim: GPL violation - esolyt
http://www.itworld.com/storage/295325/red-hats-new-patent-troll-weapon-gpl-violation

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lbarrow
I think the blog title is a bit sensational here. 'Patent trolls', at least as
I understand the term, do not produce products. That's the whole point:
they're trolls because they do nothing but sue people, without adding any
value themselves. Twin Peaks does produce products, so they aren't a troll.
Red Hat has just found an interesting way to counter-sue in a fairly ordinary
patent dispute.

The fact that Twin Peaks clearly waited until Gluster had been acquired by Red
Hat before filing doesn't make it a troll.

~~~
krichman
It is the examples of prior art that make it patent trolling.

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buster
Nope, not patent troll (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll>):

Patent troll is a pejorative term used for a person or company who enforces
patents against one or more alleged infringers in a manner considered
aggressive or opportunistic with no intention to manufacture or market the
patented invention.

~~~
krichman
I reject that definition and suggest that it should instead mean, "a
pejorative term used for a person or company who enforces one or more
patent(s) that do not fullfil the requirement of being non-obvious and
inventive against one or more alleged infringers in any manner, especially if
considered aggressive or opportunistic, or with no intention to manufacture or
market the patented invention".

When I say patent troll, I mean someone using patents to delay innovation
instead of using them to encourage innovation (as they were intended). In this
case, there's clear prior art and they are suing after the company responsible
was acquired by Red Hat. I'm not going to accept that someone is not a patent
troll if they happen to have an application or framework that, e.g., redirects
users to a online store for purchase of the full version of an app after
tapping a link. Everyone in the field, the companies starting the lawsuits
included, know that these patents should not have been issued.

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baddox
"Intellectual property" as a socially and legally recognized concept is
nonsensical and harmful, even in instances like the GPL where it's intended to
increase freedom.

~~~
astrodust
If we could live off of a handful of ideas and had no want of food, shelter,
or clothing, I'd be in complete agreement.

~~~
icebraining
This is the point where you demonstrate with evidence that a lack of
recognition of IP would cause such problems, right?

As someone who gets paid for developing software that can be freely shared,
I'm particularly interested.

~~~
astrodust
If there's zero protection for "intellectual property", it becomes a lot
harder for the majority of the software industry to even function.

Apple, as an enterprise, has been very successful by building a profitable
operating system platform and channeling those profits back in to both
hardware and software engineering. That kind of enterprise would not exist if
Apple's software could be used by anyone for anything.

Any hardware vendor of any consequence could use that as they see fit,
resulting in a stew of mis-matched standards and rampant confusion, not unlike
the Android tablet market. While there are good products in this space, they
are often difficult to differentiate from superficially similar yet
technically inferior alternatives. This is not helping people on the whole.

Personally I like the choice between a premium product which is commercialized
and free, open-source alternatives that are, for many applications, good
enough. I would not want a market that's locked in to one model at the expense
of the other.

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monochromatic
That's great, except it would be totally ineffectual against a real troll. If
you're not making anything, you're likely not violating the GPL.

~~~
zurn
You could use it against the patent troll's masters (eg. Mosaid)

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huhtenberg
This is not going to be effective _unless_ Red Hat really pushes for damages.
Shutting down Twin Peaks products is not a big deal, they will just release
the source of their mount.mfs and/or rewrite the mount, and then push out a
new version that doesn't violate mount's license.

~~~
warp
Except that GPLv2 doesn't work like that. Once the license is violated you
permanently lose the rights granted by the license. So even if Twin Peaks
fixes their stuff and comes back into compliance, they do not get their rights
back automatically -- the copyright holders have to explicitly give them back
these rights.

This is one of the important differences between GPLv2 and GPLv3.

~~~
morsch
Wait, so when you're dealing with GPLv3 stuff, you do get the license for
redistribution back automatically?

~~~
warp
Yes. See [1] and [2].

[1] <http://www.fsf.org/news/android-termination-upgrade-gplv3> [2]
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html#section8>

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eurleif
>Since both of Twin Peaks' products are released under a proprietary license,
there was no source code of any changes it made to mount released, which is a
violation of the GPLv2.

Seems like Twin Peaks could resolve this by just releasing the source code to
their version of mount. Maybe Red Hat will be able to get damages out of it,
but if Twin Peaks releases the code in a timely fashion, I doubt Red Hat will
be able to get an injunction against their product sales. (IANAL.) Meanwhile,
the patent suit goes on.

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graue
The GPL has a clause saying that if its terms are violated, all rights granted
to the violator by the GPL are terminated. So if Twin Peaks did indeed copy
Red Hat's mount code as alleged, they would never be allowed to distribute
that code again (without specific permission).

~~~
xtdx
Term 5? All that says is if you don't accept the terms, you don't get to use
the software. There's no irrevocable termination of rights.

At worst, all they have to do is download a new copy of mount and presto, they
have a new license.

[err, that's for gpl2. gpl3 has a more complicated termination procedure.]

ok, so in light of gpl3, they just need to go back and get a gpl2 copy of
mount. It's not like mount has changed all that much, I'm sure the 2007
version will suffice. Or they could just write their own. How many lines of
code are we talking about here?

~~~
graue
Term 4 in GPLv2. "Any attempt otherwise to copy ... will automatically
terminate your rights under this License."

~~~
xtdx
Read right over that. But I suspect they can still just download another copy,
as the second download would be a new offer, and they can then agree and
comply with that one.

~~~
danieldk
It's not that simple. Relevant reading in this context:

<https://lwn.net/Articles/455013/>

~~~
xtdx
"Each kernel release is a different work; the chances that any given piece of
code has been modified in a new release are pretty high. One could argue that
each kernel release comes with its own license; the termination of one does
not necessarily affect rights to other releases."

That is the argument I am making.

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vhf
My only hope in this double-case is that if TPS offers an even settlement,
RedHat refuses it.

Fighting GPL violations is the "good" side, patent trolling the "bad".

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recoiledsnake
>Since free software is so pervasive these days, it might not be very hard to
find something within a company's product portfolio that depends greatly on
free or open source software. Once discovered, all it takes is a claim of
license violation like this one to shut down that software

That paragraph actually makes it sound scary to even use open source software
when they actually mean only GPL'ed software and that too only when modified
_and_ distributed/sold.

~~~
cjbprime
> That paragraph actually makes it sound scary to even use open source
> software when they actually mean only GPL'ed software and that too only when
> modified and distributed/sold.

No, you have to comply with the GPL regardless of whether you've modified the
source that you're distributing. (As in this case: I'd be surprised if Twin
Peaks modified mount -- I don't see why they'd need to.)

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jlarocco
You completely missed the point.

There's a lot of open source code that isn't GPL. Many licenses don't require
the code to be distributed, even if it's changed.

The sentence from the article makes it sound like all open source code is GPL.

~~~
bo1024
Yes, but the poster 'recoiledsnake' made a separate mistake, stating that
modification to GPL code is required for it to be vulnerable to lawsuits. As
cjbprime stated, that isn't true; using the code is enough for it to be
covered.

~~~
josephlord
Distribution not use is required for the GPL to restrict you. But you are
right that modification is irrelevant.

~~~
bo1024
thanks, funny that I also made a mistake

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slowpoke
Could we (as in, everyone) please stop referring to programs in general as
"apps"? It's retarded. An "app" is a specific kind of program for a
smartphone. mount isn't such a program.

Sorry, this just bugged me.

~~~
swang
Could we (as in, everyone) please stop referring to something we find stupid
or dumb in general as "retarded"? It's offensive.

Sorry, this just bugged me.

~~~
baddox
If your best argument for why someone should stop doing something is that
"it's offensive," I will have trouble taking your side.

~~~
natrius
When given a choice between two otherwise equivalent options, most non-
sociopaths will choose the option that is less likely to offend their
audience.

~~~
rimantas
Fuck the audience. If they are so easily offended they should get therapy
instead of calling others sociopaths. Offence is taken, not given.

~~~
Karunamon
However, if you're attempting to get a point across, you generally do better
by keeping social norms in mind. Offending your audience instantly makes them
think about whatever "horrible" thing you just said and not on whatever point
you're trying to communicate.

Put another way, if nobody is getting your point, perhaps the problem isn't
with the audience :)

(I am, however, going to steal that "offense is taken, not given" line for
future (ab)use)

~~~
baddox
> _However, if you're attempting to get a point across, you generally do
> better by keeping social norms in mind._

And if everyone followed that principle, society would never change. The
perfect fourth would still sound dissonant, rape victims would be under even
more pressure to keep the crime secret, etc.

~~~
Karunamon
You know, i did say _generally_. Did you just miss that or..?

