Protecting the open-source license commons [LWN.net]

Protecting the open-source license commons

Posted Nov 6, 2018 3:57 UTC (Tue) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642)
In reply to: Protecting the open-source license commons by farnz
Parent article: Protecting the open-source license commons

farnz, as I understand the situation you describe, it sounds likely that both parties involved are violating the GPL. (IANAL and TINLA and I'd need to study the situation closer to be sure of anything). I have heard about these kinds of NDAs, and even been shown them by GPL violation reporters. If you'd like to report the violation to Conservancy, compliance@sfconservancy.org is the address.

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Protecting the open-source license commons

Posted Nov 6, 2018 9:06 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (4 responses)

At the time, we reported it to the SFC, SFLC and FSFE; none of you were able to take sufficient action to get the violator to do anything.

AFAICT, the violator we informed you of at the time is still functioning this way several years later - they've certainly approached my current employer with a similar setup, and been forcefully declined.

Protecting the open-source license commons

Posted Nov 6, 2018 18:06 UTC (Tue) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] (3 responses)

Please refresh the thread with Conservancy if you don't mind. Of those organizations, Conservancy is the only one that enforces the GPL for Linux (and I believe, at all). I'll mention to Denver to expect your email when next he works (he works only one day a week).

Protecting the open-source license commons

Posted Nov 6, 2018 18:09 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link] (2 responses)

I no longer have access to the thread - I've changed employer, and thus don't have access to my old employer's email system.

At the time, IIRC, it all fizzled out because our legal advisor stopped us sharing with you (because we had agreed to the NDA, and were getting distribution from the vendor under the NDA), and you could not take action without more evidence of the infringement than we could provide given the NDA we had agreed to.

Protecting the open-source license commons

Posted Nov 16, 2018 16:28 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

iirc, farnz, you're British? And in Britain, violating copyright for commercial gain is a criminal offence.

NDAs are unenforceable when they're used to cover up illegal behaviour.

Of course that's the theory. Practice may be different ... but I really think that if they sue you for breaking the NDA, and you come back to the Judge "hey, they are behaving criminally and asking us to cover it up", the Judge will at least have to investigate that claim, and chuck the case out if you're right.

Cheers,
Wol

Protecting the open-source license commons

Posted Nov 16, 2018 16:49 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727) [Link]

It's not as simple as "violating copyright for commercial gain is a criminal offence". The offences in the Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988 only apply if the violator has reason to believe that they're not violating; in the case I'm thinking of, the violator believed that as they were copyright owner of one part of the combined work, their license supersedes the GPL. Had they also committed the offence named in 107 subsection 2A (which requires monetary damages to the owner of the infringed copyright, not just infringement), then our legal advisor thought a prosecution might succeed; as it is, the violator raised the SFC's "principles of enforcement" as reason that they did not commit that offence.