How Hardware Makers Come To Violate Free Software Licenses 186
H4x0r Jim Duggan writes "Veteran violation chasers Shane Coughlan and Armijn Hemel have summarized how license violations are caused in the consumer electronics market under time-to-market pressure and thin profit margins: 'This problem is compounded when one board with a problem appears in devices supplied to a number of western companies. A host of violation reports spanning a dozen European and American businesses may eventually point towards a single mistake during development at an Asian supplier.' They also discuss the helpful organizations which have sprung up and the documents and procedures now available."
Re:Free Software Licenses? (Score:5, Informative)
Come on, bonch. You are either hopelessly confused or an intentional troll.
Copyright infringement is that, copyright infringement and *not theft*. It is still an infringement -- whether it concerns a work put under the GPL or the newest song by the Spice Girls.
No sensible person here is contending that. It's just this meme of "intellectual property" which we are contending. Copyright, trademark and patents are basically fine (although not as they are now. Especially: copyright terms are too long, patents shouldn't apply to software, maths or business methods, yadda, yadda).
(I am able to imagine a society without copyrights, patents and even trademarks: we wouldn't need the GPL there. But that is open to lots of debate, I know).
Clear now?
The Linux Exception (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Free Software Licenses? (Score:4, Informative)
This specious argument has been bandied around by shameless pirates for a long time and it's simply not true.
At least in the UK, the courts have held a clear difference; in the case of Oxford v Moss [wikipedia.org], the courts ruled that under the 1968 theft act information is not necessarily intangible[sic] property, and therefor cannot be stolen.
Re:like those DVDs (Score:3, Informative)
Different pricing in different regions. In some countries, they can get away with charging a lot more, so they do. If imports weren't prevented from playing through the use of region-coding, people in those countries could just import a cheaper version of the same DVD.