Open-source programmer alleges Linux misuse

An open-source programmer stopped by the CeBit trade show in Hannover, Germany, this week to tell Motorola and 12 other companies he believes they're using Linux in violation of the license that governs the software.

Harald Welte said the companies have embedded Linux in their products but haven't released the underlying source code, as required by the General Public License, or GPL, that governs the operating system. He tried to notify 13 companies of his complaint at the sprawling trade show, but three companies refused to accept it, he said in an e-mail interview.

Most of the CeBit products he thinks violate the GPL are networking equipment, he said. In his general work, he's also found violations in set-top boxes, vehicle navigation systems and special-purpose software.

Much enforcement of the GPL's terms comes from the Free Software Foundation, an organization run by original GPL author Richard Stallman. But Welte, who has wanted GPL violations to be fixed more quickly and publicly, has strong enforcement credentials.

Welte is an author of networking software called netfilter/iptables that's covered by GPL. But he spends about a quarter of his time working on the GPL Violations Project.

The project is a "one-man show," but Welte has been a dogged fighter for his beliefs; he said he's settled more than 25 cases so far, and he's won two rounds in a court case against one company, Sitecom.

Open-source software, which introduces somewhat alien concepts such as sharing and cooperation, has at times been hard for the largely proprietary computing industry to swallow. Although the success of projects such as Linux, Apache and Firefox have made open-source software more mainstream, Welte believes much more education still is ahead.

"The ultimate goal is to raise awareness that the GPL is not public domain, but a copyright license," Welte said. "Instead of paying license fees, you provide a copy of the source code and pass the license to your users."

The GPL, a widely used 1991 legal framework now being modernized, permits anyone to use, modify and distribute a program. However, it also requires those who distribute the software to provide its underlying source code.

In some cases, the companies do try to supply the source code, but fall short of requirements, Welte said. "At least until three days ago when I checked last, this source code was either corrupted, incomplete

Gee.. its not free?

Here is yet another case of companies looking for a way to put out a product cheaper so they can make more money.

I applaud this guy. The GPL has allowed a lot of us to use and build software/applications/operating systems affordably. It allows people who cant afford to shell out thousands of dollars to IBM/Microsoft/Sun to product/develope/code products for the benefit of technology, not a money hungry rich board of directors.

Keep it up my friend. There are a lot of us out here supporting your efforts. If these companies dont want to comply they have a choice.. pay MS licensing fees for all Windows CE OS's and develop your mobile phones/WAP's etc.. on that. Huh.. too expensive huh? Afraid youll make a product that you will have to charge an extra $150 for just to cover the MS license? Too bad..

As he states.. its NOT a free license.. its a contract.. a promise to publish your code to be shared by other developers to advance that knowledge and technology of us all.

DO THE RIGHT THING!

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They should have used NetBSD instead

Runs on lots of hardware, and no GPL license to bite you later.