SWSoft Out of Compliance With the GPL

MBCook writes "According to the Official Wine Wiki, SWSoft's Parallels 3.0 contains LGPL code. It seems that the new 3D acceleration features of Parallels 3.0 are based on Wine code (SWSoft isn't hiding this), but despite repeated requests they have not yet released their changes for the Wine developers. It has now been 22 days since SWSoft was first contacted on this issue; at the time they promised the code within 1-2 days. They have been contacted numerous time and currently say that they are waiting on 'legal department approval.'" Update: 07/03 00:06 GMT by KD : Reader something_wicked_thi notes that Parallels released the source code the next day.

They want me to upgrade

[JohnnyGTO (102952)]

to 3.0 This is another reason I'll wait.

Re:

[frogstar_robot (926792)]

I, in fact, have a paid for copy of Parallels 3. I will be asking for my copies of the LGPLed sources and will forward to the Wine project all correspondence received. Since I will be far from the only person doing this, I believe that the Wine project will be well within their rights as the copyright holders to insist on compliance.

legal approval?

[timmarhy (659436)]

haha, what the fuck are they waiting for legal approval for? is legal going to tell them it's ok to violate someone elses copyright?

This is why i hate software firms, stealing of gpl'd code is rife in the industry, yet software firms (i'm looking at you microsoft) are constantly pointing the finger at OSS as if THEY are the ones guilty of theift.

the reality of the situation is that OSS is far more concious of copyright and patent issues then anyone else, and do far more then anyone to audit code for violations yet somehow have been slapped with this label of code stealers.

For a lawyers opinion

[Actually, I do RTFA (1058596)]

It is LGPL'd not GPL'd code. The license expressly states that the reason for the LGPL is to allow proprietary software to use the library in some ways. Maybe they are sitting down with their lawyers to ensure compliance absent releasing the source. Maybe they have several contributors and need to sort out the rights so they don't get sued. Heck, maybe they are seeking clairity on this point from the license:

When a "work that uses the Library" uses material from a header file that is part of the Library, the object code for the work may be a derivative work of the Library even though the source code is not. Whether this is true is especially significant if the work can be linked without the Library, or if the work is itself a library. The threshold for this to be true is not precisely defined by law.

Point is, lawyers are slow, and companies often use them to prevent negative, unforseen consequences. Give them more time before crucifying/boycotting/etc. instinctively.

Re:For a lawyers opinion

[enrevanche (953125)]

If they can't comply by the license in the first place, they should stop selling the software until they get their "legal" issues sorted out. They're probably trying to avoid releasing code by moving it to other modules even though this will violate the license.

Re:For a lawyers opinion

[SanityInAnarchy (655584)]

The license expressly states that the reason for the LGPL is to allow proprietary software to use the library in some ways.

But if I understand this, they have modified the library itself, and not released their changes. The LGPL lets you link with a library, including using the library's official header files, without your program being considered a derivative work of the library -- your own code does not have to be LGPL'd.

However, the library itself is still LGPL'd, and anything you do with it must still have source code released.

Point is, lawyers are slow, and companies often use them to prevent negative, unforseen consequences. Give them more time before crucifying/boycotting/etc. instinctively.

I'm sorry, the time lawyers have to work this out is before the software is released. They are now in violation.

Let's say I start beating the shit out of you, and you tell me to stop. Should I stop, or should I call my lawyer and wait a week for him to tell me it's OK to stop (during which time I'm still kicking you)? The correct answer is I should stop, and for that matter, I should never have started. My lawyer should have told me not to kick you in the first place.

Re:For a lawyers opinion

[weicco (645927)]

When a "work that uses the Library" uses material from a header file that is part of the Library, the object code for the work may be a derivative work of the Library even though the source code is not.

I thought AT&T vs BSD case settled this. Header files aren't protectable. Of course it gets unclear what happens if header files contain inline functions (whoever puts code to header file should be shot at noon:) but function signatures or class definitions aren't copyrightable code.

Re:legal approval?

[Antique Geekmeister (740220)]

We can expect the lawyers of any company challenged this way to delay, delay, delay until the challenge actually costs them money, for example by scaring off investors or landing them in court. Publication of the modified source code can open up their trade secrets or optimizations, or even disabled feature sets enabled only for more expensive releases, to activation by hackers and competitors.

I've seen at least one company do their damnedest to ignore the GPL and "forget" to notify their customers of GPL based code or modifications, or provide source, as a "trade secret". It led to a very serious argument between my supervisor and the company president, who liked us having some secret tools we could use to push our products. I wanted the GPL-based fixes to go into the next software release so we wouldn't have to keep patching things and they would just work from then on.

Re:

[rbanffy (584143)]

True. There is great beauty in their craft. Lawyers are not so far from hackers as many hackers believe - they are still walking around code, legal code, and trying to bend it in ways it was never meant to be.

Re:

[sumdumass (711423)]

What if they are wanting to check to see if releasing the code is an admission of guilt that could be used against then in some future lawsuit? I can see why you would want to clear anything with a legal team when you have been accused of wrong doing. And this is even true if your wrong doing is by accident or on purpose.

Re:

[rbanffy (584143)]

That's the "deep shit scenario" for them.

OTOH, they may be evaluating how the code they built upon Wine can be detached from it (say, modding Wine so that it can link to non-LGPL'd extensions and keeping those proprietary things in the extensions) or how much the contributions are really a competitive edge that needs to be kept secret.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

> Think for a moment and stop going off like an idiot.

> Who do you think should make the decision as to what is legally required? Perhaps the legal department? Perhaps they have outside counsel like many small companies, and their lawyers needs to read the LGPL and figure out what it applies do.

Wtf are you talking about ? The thing is as clear cut as it can be. In http://www.parallels.com/en/licensing/ [parallels.com] parallels says that you have to send a request to "[e-mail]" to get the source code. Le

Re:Maybe a legal opinion?

[samkass (174571)]

I don't think anyone's arguing they are out of compliance with their license. The question is whether 1-2 days is a reasonable timeframe to correct a legal matter. These guys don't appear to be doing anything except being a little slow to respond to legal inquiries-- they are showing every intention of complying and show a basic understanding of what they have to do. Just give them a little time.

expect it soon

[mikesum (840054)]

Expect it soon, after all the slashdotters send them a nice e-mail.

Be patient

[Rix (54095)]

22 days isn't very long, and it sounds like they're not entirely sure where they stand. Let them get proper legal advice, and then plan out what they'll release. The alternative is that they'll clamp down, pull the feature, and release nothing.

Re:Be patient

[Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289)]

22 days isn't very long, and it sounds like they're not entirely sure where they stand.

Bollocks. Just like other copyrighted code, Parallels shouldn't release derived binaries until they're compliant.

What if (say) Microsoft was including some Apple products in Vista - and hadn't responded to Apple's questions for 22 days. Would you be saying "Calm down, give Microsoft some more time to seek legal advice"?

The alternative is that they'll clamp down, pull the feature, and release nothing.

Well, I can see why that would upset Parallels fans - but please explain wtf wine should care.

Re:

[TheSkyIsPurple (901118)]

>They damn well better have someone who can read on staff. It's not as if the GPL is all that complicated.

I they're anything like alot of companies, one of the development managers might have read the license, thought they understood a corner case where things didn't fully apply, and went forward on that assumption. They "think" they understand it, so why do they need an attorney?

Now that they've been tagged as being in violation, they've found out they may have thought wrong, and real attorneys have to

Re:

[antime (739998)]

It gets more complex, because as far as I can see the Wine libraries are not distributed separately from the main Parallels VM. Once you've installed the "Parallels Tools" inside the VM you get a wined3d.dll sitting inside your Windows\system32 folder. Is it statically linked? Does it form one single work, thus placing the whole package under the GPL?

Re:Be patient

[kripkenstein (913150)]

Be patient

Excellent advice in general, and in this case specifically. As the Wine project's wiki page says,

This page is meant for keeping track of this, without starting legal action or a publicity campaign yet.

...but someone decided to post it to Slashdot, and the editors published it (effectively starting a 'publicity campaign' of sorts). That was really unnecessary. Sure, SWSoft said they would reply in 'days' and it has been weeks, but weeks is still very little time. I agree with the Wine people on that.

As for why they are waiting for 'confirmation from their legal department' or such, who knows, perhaps the lawyers just need to sign off on it and one of them is on vacation. Or perhaps the code contains snippets from other code sources and they need to ascertain some issues first. It does make sense to be careful before publishing source code - although, true, they should have been careful *before* distributing the binaries.

Contant the CEO

[SolitaryMan (538416)]

Write to the CEO (Sergey Beloussov) directly: [e-mail] He is pretty responsive actually.

As a former employee, I should say that part of the problem is developers, that choose libraries for the project without looking into the license. I didn't work on Parallels project, so I don't know how exactly it is there, but in our project I several time had to tell people that they can't use some library, because it is GPL and they were like "Hmm, never thought of looking at it from this perspective". Most of them just used to take and use whatever is available

Not the GPL, Wine uses LGPL...

[Swift Kick (240510)]

The headline is *wrong*.

Wine uses LGPL 2.1, not the latest GPL or even the latest version of the LGPL.

WineHQ states that "The licensing terms are the GNU Lesser General Public License" on their main page, which links to the Licensing page where they have the text for the LGPL v2.1 (http://www.winehq.org/site/license).

I read their copy of the LGPL 2.1, and other than requesting that copies of the library and its source be distributed with the project that uses it, I don't see where it says that the source for the entire project making use of the library has to be released as well, unless it can be demonstrated that significant changes have been made to the library to use it in the project or that the project relies completely on it to make it unusable if removed.

Now, correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think anyone has actually seen any of the Parallels sourcecode, so no one can actually say how much or even if Parallels has modified Wine to use it in their software.

While they admit they use Wine DLLs in a forum post (http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=12648 ), the statement is somewhat confusing, since it can be intepreted that they're using only Wine DLLs or that they actually changed some of Wine code to suit them. Are we going after Parallels simply because of a forum post and a timeline on a wiki?

Does Parallels really have to release their source code if no one can conclusively know if or how they have modified Wine source?

Re:

[Swift Kick (240510)]

Thanks for linking back to the same post I linked to.
I'll repeat what I said in my post, which I believe you either ignored or glossed over:

"While they admit they use Wine DLLs in a forum post (http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=12648 ), the statement is somewhat confusing, since it can be intepreted that they're using only Wine DLLs or that they actually changed some of Wine code to suit them. Are we going after Parallels simply because of a forum post and a timeline on a wiki?"

The Parallels foru

Re:

[Niten (201835)]

Sorry, you're right of course. I blame my lack of reading comprehension on the beer.

But even so, according to my understanding of the (L)GPL, they are required to offer the source code to any binary LGPL-licensed code that they ship. So it's basically a moot point.

Re:Not the GPL, Wine uses LGPL...

[xoboots (683791)]

Hi.

I'm no expert but I do work on projects that use LGPL. From my experiences, I have the following answer for you based on the following reasoning:

1) LGPL is by far the most permissive of the FSF licenses.
2) The point of the LGPL is to allow developers to separately license independent code that they write/use from the LGPL code that they may want to include. In contrast to the GPL, independently developed parts of a delivered product can be licensed separately from the LGPL'd code (ie: the LGPL does not have the so-called "viral" nature of the GPL)
3) LGPL does have specific requirements. For example, LGPL'd code that is modified must be redistributed in source form. Not surprisingly, unmodified LGPL code must also be redistributed.
4) Interestingly and importantly, a product that includes LGPL'd code must be built in such a way that it is *possible* for end-users to swap-out and otherwise replace the distributed LGPL'd portions of the codebase with complementary versions of their choosing. Eg: if parallels ships a particular wine dll, then as a user, I should be able to replace that dll with a comparable one of my choosing. If that can only be accomplished by applying patches to standard versions of the LGPL'd codebase (ie: if the distributed product modified the LGPL code) then the necessary changes for the LGPL portions must be made available. In short, modified LGPL'd source code must be redistributed. Of course, non LGPL'd source code need only be redistributed based on the license it was granted under.

The way I see it, point 4 is the crux of the issue. So, if it is true that I can't use parallels without being able to swap in my own version of the wine code that parallels uses just because parallels has made material changes to the wine code that are necessary but which they haven't made public, then the LGPL is being violated. As an LGPL developer, I don't care if you use my code in your project. The only meaningful stipulation is that if you modified my LGPL'd software in such a way that your other code is dependent on those changes, you must make those changes available to everyone you distribute your code to. Failing to do so means that you have effectively usurped the share-alike basis of the LGPL by instilling yourself as the only entity capable of incorporating the LGPL code into your software. IMHO, this is the main difference between LGPL and BSD code -- both are "non-viral" but the LGPL insists on share-alike and (perhaps more meaningfully) restricts products that would attempt to limit how users incorporate LGPL'd portions of the codebase.

Before I close I want to address why this should be important. Let's say that software company X produces product Y using LGPL'd software Z. Say I have a license for Y but that X has gone out of business. In the intervening time, Z has undergone some important updates (perhaps security related). If as a user I can't update my legally acquired Y unless the defunct X does so, then I am out-of-luck. The LGPL is meant to protect users so that they don't fall prey to the whims of their vendors for portions of their software that should be (would be) otherwise openly available to them.

SWSoft's Plesk does similar

[by Anonymous Coward]

There is already ill feeling towards SWSoft from some of the community over issues of license adherence and I'm surprised it's not already been mentioned in this discussion.

SWSoft are also the developers of Plesk which is (expensive commercial) server management software, similar in functionality to cPanel and the like.

For a number of years now some Plesk users have been complaining that source code is not made readily available for some of the patched packages that are provided by SWSoft with their Plesk software -- specifically here I am referring to Qmail, but this applies to other modified software bundled with Plesk.

It's a total bummer - make's it impossible to tweak the mail server when you can't simply rebuild it, especially with Qmail - the base code for which doesn't have any of the more modern useful features that other mail servers have until you apply a myriad of patches to it.

- Which patches have they applied and how?
- What other tweaks have they made?
- Where can I get the source code for the non-SWSoft bundled components of Plesk?

I really think SWSoft have pushed their luck for too long already, it's about time they either became compliant and released the ALL of the code they were meant to - or they should be punished legally.

Posting anonymously because we use Plesk a lot (not my choice).

I would be interested to hear comments from anyone else on the matter of source code for the modified open source components utilised within Plesk...

Reality check...

[itsdapead (734413)]

Before we all get too excited...

The TFA links to a page on the official Parallels website that acknowledges the use of open source code from various sources, including the use of the LGPL, and offers to provide the source on request, as required.

Allegedly, when people have actually EMAILed this address, the response has been less than satisfactory.

Its quite right that the WINE people are keeping an eye on this situation, but I suggest that people browse the rest of the Parallels support fora and form an impression of the company's general track-record vis. timely and helpful responses to EMAIL requests before trying to answer the "conspiracy" vs. "cock-up" question.

Parallels for Mac is a jolly impressive product - they got a perfectly usable package out of the door, at a very low price within, what? six months of the launch of Intel Macs, and have since been regularly upping the ante in terms of OSX/Windows integration. However, they also have issues - e.g. too many people were enticed by the website to try the beta version of 2.5 and the current blurb for 3.0 widely oversells its ability to Run today's most popular PC games on a Mac [parallels.com].

The latter is a pity - what they've achieved is jolly impressive (e.g. I've been quite happily running "Freelancer" - everything apart from the opening splash & movie works, UT2004 was tolerable, with glitches) but its much more "enjoy a few of your 3-4 year old PC games that you didn't think you'd be able to play again".

As for the EMAIL & support: they'd been selling virtualization software to a crowd of tech-savvy developers and sysadmins, then they suddenly started dealing with regular Mac users who wanted to sync their mobile phones or run accounting software and were now trying to "virtualize" the copy of windows previously installed under "bootcamp". Anybody here want to volunteer for that particular helldesk?

My response:

[Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289)]

Stop wineing already! ::Ducks::

If you don't want to respect other people's copyright, why should anyone respect your copyright?

Re:

[Whiney Mac Fanboy (963289)]

Care to explain the relevance of this comment? ...*snip*...Unless I'm misreading your comment...

Yup, you are misreading my comment. Here's my original comment, with the pronouns expanded:

If you (parallels) don't want to respect other people's (wine's) copyright, why should anyone respect your (parallels) copyright?

Bullshit...

[Eric Damron (553630)]

Mod Parent down [com.com]

The poster is a troll [slashdot.org]

Re:

[rbanffy (584143)]

We should start modding down posts that come from Microsoft IP addresses... That would sure help.

How about starting a data-mining project relating insightfulness/informativeness to geographic region, IP address or company affiliation? I offer my free time to do so.

Taco, do you copy?

Re:

[Verte (1053342)]

Sorry, you seem to be mistaken. You're only required to publish changes if you /distribute/ code, which is not what is happening at all. And, you don't need to GPL things compiled by gcc, you need to GPL things compiled with glibc, ie, when you actually include GPL'd code in yours. I think. For all I know, glibc could be LGPL'd [now that I think about it, it probably is]. The reason being, you don't actually distribute any part of gcc with your software.

That would be like having being told what you can and

Re:

[taupter (139818)]

The GNU C Library actually is distributed under LGPL ( http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_node /Copying.html [gnu.org]), So your closed-source proprietary code is allowed to link with it without any problem and you don't have to redistribute the Glibc's code as long as it's unmodified. According to http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=12648& highlight=wine [parallels.com] , a guy named Andrew, who is a Parallels' forum administrator, openly admitted they're using modified LGPL code, as quoted: "In current impleme

Re:The GPL: Intellectual Theft

[Antique Geekmeister (740220)]

[ Technical note: You don't normally defrag ext2 or ext3: neither need it. ]

I've seen very similar complaints from folks who never understood or had the GPL carefully explained to them. Yes, if you build on top of someone else's code base (such as a Linux kernel, which is under GPL) and send that modified tool to your customers, then you have to send along your modifications to your customers. This is how Linux the kernel, and the GNU softwaer on which so much of Linux the operating system, became so powerful and effective.

If you're going to compete in that world, and reap the benefits of the software, you'll have to have some real addition to sell on top of it. This may be continuing technical innovation in your product line: this may be unique support for its use: it may be customization services for your customers. But yeah, you can't change 2 lines of code to break compatibility with anyone else's products and pretend it's the same product, then keep it secret. (That's basically what Microsoft did with Kerberos in Active Directory: it's been worked around in MIT's source code.) Nor can you reap 1000 man-weeks of development time, add 2 weeks for a cute new feature, and deny the others who provided that 1000 man-weeks the opportunity to test or include that feature.

If your source code is so precious that only you can be allowed to see or use it, then you are massively vulnerable to software theft. And frankly, that kind of secrecy makes your code untrustworthy: what precisely are you scared of people seeing? That you've hacked your libraries to work around a hardware bug that should never have been there? Or that your security model is a sad, sad joke? Or that your much vaunted "new feature" is something that has been in place for 4 years, but was never published? (Yes, I've seen all of these happen.)

Re:

[Antique Geekmeister (740220)]

Whoa, whoa. I didn't say it's a good thing to be fragmented. But to a large extent, it's pointless to defragment with a reasonably well written file system such as ext2 and ext3. There's quite a bit of low level work that went into optimizing their disk access, and the file structure is not prone to the sort of performance degradation common to FAT32 or to a lesser extent NTFS when numerous caching operations are done. Moreover, the typical caching of frequently accessed files in available RAM massively red

Re:The GPL: Intellectual Theft

[paranoidgeek (840730)]

Has any of the /. staff thought writing an addition/plugin/module/whatever to slash that identifies these troll posts and stop them from being posted ? Most of these have been around for ages, and posted many times (although i couldn't find that many from /., mainly because [AFAIK] google will not index threads that are hidden).

Shouldn't be that hard, define some way of calculating the distance between texts, allow users to flag posts as repeat troll, when enough similar flagged posts are found add it to the list, and finally check new posts against the list at post time.

But OTOH, this is probably a little overkill for something that is already dealt with rather well by the existing modding system.

Re:The GPL: Intellectual Theft

[trianglman (1024223)]

Sorry to feed the troll, but you obviously don't know the first thing about Linux, and both you and your company's lawyers don't know the first thing about the GPL.

were unable to defrag its ext2 file system

ext2 and 3 are both designed to not need to be defragged, unlike FAT or NTFS, which require it on a regular basis to keep from being nigh useless.

So you can imagine our surprise[sic] when we were informed ... that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL.

Any company that doesn't examine the licensing of the software it will use before putting it into production deserves whatever legal consequences it earns. The first thing I do before starting a project based on other open source (or more rarely proprietary) software is check the listening t make sure I can use it for what I need.

Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available ... Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools

WRONG. The GPL only requires source code disclosure if you distribute the modified code. GPL code isn't free in the do whatever you want, anarchy style freedom that some might want. GPL is free in a community conscious, mutual support style. I personally, as a developer, am of a mixed opinion about this setup. On one side, there is the desire to try making money by hiding "secrets". The other side is that the people who wrote GPL code put a lot of (usually personal) time into developing this code and taking their code without proper credit and listening to their wish on how to use the code.

If you think that using someone's code without proper credit is fair, stop using GPL and label yourself an IP thief. You will also need to write your own kernel (or go back to paying $150+ per seat to use Windows). There are different costs for using different things. Community support is the cost of GPL software, cold hard cash (along with the potential for other, undisclosed costs) is the cost for proprietary software. Its your choice, but when you chose don't complain that you didn't look at what you picked.

Re:You are a liar

[Sparks23 (412116)]

True, but the issue here is not GPL'd code, but LGPL'd (Limited GPL, or Library GPL) code. GPL means all your code must be open/released, or you cannot use the GPL'd code in your project; that's the situation you describe above. LGPL'd code can be linked in proprietary projects where the source is not available, but any *changes* you make to the LGPL'd code must be released/contributed back. The LGPL was originally created for libraries that should be usable in proprietary software, but which you don't want closed/proprietary forks of, but it's been used for other things as well.

In this case, it sounds as though SWSoft has taken LGPL'd code, modified it to do more stuff in some way and then used that for the 3d accleration support in Parallels 3.0... that's all fine, and Parallels itself doesn't need the source opened. But they have not contributed those changes to the actual LGPL code -- their own modifications, bugfixes, etc. -- back to Wine, and that is *not* okay under the license. So Wine wants the code contributed back, and SWSoft is stalling, which is the problem.

Re:

[koh (124962)]

Payable to the FSF. Isn't that how the industry works?

Well, I don't know if all copyrights to Wine have been transferred to the FSF, but if not, then no, that's not how the industry works.

Each Wine copyright holder (there may well be hundreds, as for the Linux kernel) is free to sue for damages, royalties, their first born, whatever. Maybe they even can initiate a class action lawsuit together. But there's no way the FSF will collect the damages just by being the FSF.

AFAICT that's the main reason for GNU to

This is craziness, calm down people...

[alexhmit01 (104757)]

First off, their are statutory damages, but generally only for registered copyrights. Also, it's not clear what "damages" the copyright owner, we don't know who, has suffered. Your relief is based upon damages, and maybe a punitive component, not I don't like you.

The FSF requires copyright assigned because then there is a clear owner and clear damages, because the FSF with the GNU manifesto and other things has its defined benefit from GPL'd code. Makes it more likely you can gain relief... if they sue and ask for damages plus injunctive relief, there is a clear plaintiff, not "a bunch of hackers," that has standing.

22 days is no a long time. Generally, if you are dealing in legal action, 30 days is standard. Sure, obnoxious lawyers demand things with 10 days to correct, but generally, 30 is normal.

It appears to be a major screw-up, they released code based upon LGPL'd code. Legal needs to figure out what they did, what they are at risk for, and what they should do. They need to make certain that they can legally release code, and if that is sufficient.

The copyright holders should hold their feet to the fire, but public shaming and getting half stories out seems a bit premature at this stage of the game. What damages can the Wine project have had from not having access to derivative versions of their software from this company in 22 days? Lots of things can crop of and cause things to take a few weeks. Everyone chill, and don't prejudge until we see a resolution.

Everyone is "free to sue," but each wine copyright holder may or not have standing, and may or may not have sufficient damages to due and/or be granted injunctive relief. If you ask the court to stop them from distributing your software because they are doing so without a license, it's harder to claim that if various copyright holders have 10-15 lines of code.

There is no "class" here for a class action lawsuit.

Not okay doesn't mean anything...

[alexhmit01 (104757)]

Okay, there is a list of authors. So what. Something not being okay doesn't mean it is legally challengeable.

Further, courts can offer monetary relief and injunctive relief, that' about it. Damages need to be translated into dollars.

They didn't follow the license, therefore, they are infringing upon WINE or those 800+ people's copyright, so what?

They are legally in the wrong, so what?

What are the damages? Do you want to foot the bill to just get injunctive relief?

One of the reasons to assign to FSF is t

Re:"legal department" is probably confused

[Actually, I do RTFA (1058596)]

is flabbergasted that their developers embarked upon something where they have to release their code... Except it isn't the developer's code. They do work for hire after all, and their code is SWSoft's. Maybe they didn't have permission to use LGPL code in their product?

I admit is seems unlikely however. I just want to point out that many people don't have the freedom at work to decide things like that. If I tried to incorporate F/OSS code into my work, I would lose my job, and the code would get pulled.

Re:

[Alioth (221270)]

If you distribute an LGPL library, you have to supply the source for that library (but not the code that dynamically links it) whether you modified it or not. If you modified the LGPL library, you have to supply the source code for the changes to the library as well (but not the code dynamically linked to it).

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

The member of the Wine community who is chasing this up certainly has bought a copy. He's a regular on the Parallels forums.

However, anyone who downloads the demo is eligible for a copy too... since the Wine code is in the demo version too.

Does anyone on slashdot understand the LGPL?

[caseih (160668)]

Umm, as original developers they own the copyright on the code. Period. Any distribution of the derived library (not the entire Parallels suite!) can only occur under the terms of the LGPL. Thus while the developers do not have a purchased license to install parallels, they are in a position to demand that Parallels release the modified library source doe to their customers. Otherwise Parallels is in breach of copyright and has no right to distribute the derived library in any form, customers or not.

Re:

[oyenstikker (536040)]

"they are in a position to demand that Parallels release the modified library source doe to their customers."

Not quite. They are in a position to demand that the Parallels team stop violating the terms of the license. That is to say that the Parallels team could simply stop distributing the software in question - it is unlikely that the source would ever be released.

Re:

[TheRaven64 (641858)]

You can link against LGPL'd code, as long as you allow the end user to replace this code with their own version. If it's a dynamic link, they can just swap out the shared object file for their own. If you've statically linked, then you need to distribute object files so the end user can re-link.

If, however, you modify the LGPL'd code before you distribute it, then you must also distribute all of your changes.

Re:

[westlake (615356)]

You're smart enough to write fancy virtualization software, but not smart enough to google about a very popular software license before you incorporate it into your commercial product?

Legal research demands a little more than you can get from Google.

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[alienw (585907)]

Uh, dude. If the Wine project wanted to get aggressive, they would have already lost their permission to use any of that code, and would have to remove Parallels from distribution and replace it with something else. Things like sorting out legal issues for third-party code need to be done BEFORE you release the product, not a month afterwards. If they were violating the copyrights of an actual commercial company and ignoring their demands to pay up, they would probably be looking at a multi-million dolla

Re:Smarten up, all of you.

[808140 (808140)]

Sense of entitlement? Are you serious? Listen, why don't you think of this in different terms. You own a company, and you pay your hackers to write a complex bit of software, which you sell to your clients. Suddenly, you become aware that another company, writing a piece of software that does something very similar to yours, is using your code in its product.

When you contact them to rectify the situation, they say "We know we're using your code and not abiding by the terms set forth in the license, we'll deal with it" and then a month later they still haven't dealt with it. How would you feel? Are you seriously saying that you wouldn't take them to court? They are in clear violation of your license, they have admitted as much in correspondence with your company, and still haven't dealt with it, despite your lenience. You could take them to court for millions of dollars and you would win.

For some reason, a large number of people here don't seem to understand that the GPL is a license like any other software license. It is used by free software hackers in their basements, and it is used by large, multi-national companies like IBM, RedHat, and MySQL. Just because the license is permissive does not mean that it is not a license with requirements that need to be met.

The situation with the WINE crew is exactly analogous to the scenario I outlined above, the only difference being that WINE is not a company. Everything else about it is exactly analogous. And you're going on about the coders having a "sense" of entitlement. Here's the truth: WINE is a huge and complex project that has taken a team of very talented hackers a long time to put together. Along the way, its efforts have been helped by companies, as well as by other projects like ReactOS.

The reason SWSoft used WINE in the first place, rather than just rolling their own solution, is because WINE is complex enough that to reinvent the wheel would probably have cost them millions. They were allowed to use WINE without pay -- but only on the condition that the GPL be abided by. Had it been for pay, would they have used the code first, released a product, and then waited nearly a month before sending a check? Hell no, and you know it as well as I. The problem here is that people like you and like them seem to think that just because WINE asks for source instead of code as payment, no payment is required, or that there is some leeway on the payment of debts.

In any other situation, these "internal issues that this kind of company is going to encounter" would have been taken care of prior to release. Here, they weren't.

On top of that, there's not much for them to figure out: if they used LGPL'd code, any and all changes to that code must be released. Some other posters have suggested that they're "verifying" or some such. There's nothing to verify. If they inserted code they can't release under the LGPL into a LGPL'd product and are distributing binaries produced by that mixture, they are in violation of the LGPL and can and should be sued into oblivion.

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[808140 (808140)]

If my company we're suffering harassment as a result of an licensing fuck-up like this, I may be tempted to push for expunging all LGPL code and recreating the functionality from scratch.

Oh, yes. I'm sure you'd be tempted to do that. Until you saw the price that sort of development costs. This isn't a little library of convenience routines or something. This is WINE -- a project of extreme complexity which has benefited from nearly a decade of development and testing. It is completely non-trivial.