[License-discuss] Linking question

[Bruce Perens]

Larry Rosen wrote:
> Is anything else required under the GPL or by the Busybox copyright owners? Specifically, is any of my client's proprietary software subject to disclosure? Must my client help anyone -- through product documentation or the disclosure of his proprietary code that he has purposely linked statically to Busybox -- to replace or upgrade Busybox itself in those millions of distributed proprietary wireless devices?

I am aware of a number of negotiations with Bradley Kuhn regarding 
Busybox and uClibc enforcement. Bradley was not representing my 
interest. When I was involved, I was working for the manufacturer's 
attorney and had waived my own copyright interest with regard to that 
customer. Some of the cases I know of played out before my involvement 
with that customer, and some with my direct involvement.

The parties didn't wish to contest whether they were in compliance or 
not. They instead took the route of requesting forgiveness for 
infringement as a settlement or before a suit was filed, since the terms 
to get that forgiveness end up being far less expensive than fighting 
the case.

In order to get this forgiveness, all parties that I know of have been 
required to provide complete and corresponding source code for /all 
/software with a Free Software license in the system, regardless of its 
connection with Busybox or whether SFC or SFLC was representing the 
interest of the developers of that software.

When there was static linking to uClibc, it had to become dynamic.

Parties had to provide source code for run-time loaded kernel drivers.

Once a set of Complete and Corresponding Source Code for a release was 
constructed, that release was made available to customers as an update, 
and I suspect was automatically updated in some devices. I have not 
heard that anyone was required to cause every customer to update.

In all cases, Bradley was reasonable and a pleasure to work with. When 
he became overloaded and was unable to respond to companies in time, he 
did not enforce upon those companies obligations that he otherwise could 
have.

Of course, Larry, I understand that this is not what you think should 
happen. However, it appears to be how a lawsuit or something that could 
have become a lawsuit has been resolved, in every case that I know of.

     Thanks

     Bruce

On 03/02/2012 11:13 AM, Lawrence Rosen wrote:
> Is anything else required under the GPL or by the Busybox copyright 
> owners? Specifically, is any of my client's proprietary software 
> subject to disclosure? Must my client help anyone -- through product 
> documentation or the disclosure of his proprietary code that he has 
> purposely linked statically to Busybox -- to replace or upgrade 
> Busybox itself in those millions of distributed proprietary wireless 
> devices?

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