VMware alleged to have violated Linux’s open source license for years

[lehnerus2000]

XML in Office 2007

My understanding of how Microsoft does things is the make and use their own code unless it's cheaper to buy someone else code. They have been known to buy whole companies to obtain their patens and copyrights.
As far as I know Microsoft doesn't steal code.

I'm thinking it's cheaper for Microsoft to buy patens and copyrights or the whole damn company rather than to go through all the legal B/S in courts all over the world.

There was a patent violation problem with XML in Office 2007:

Microsoft is going to have to cease providing Custom XML as part of its Office suite, as it has lost its appeal to overturn a patent-infringement verdict awarded to Toronto-based i4i for that technology.

ZDNet - Ed Bott
Microsoft removes Custom XML features from Office 2007 | ZDNet
​

 

[jimbo45]

Now it makes sense why windows 10 is a service and not an operating system. They found a loophole in the Gpls. I always wondered how can Microsoft release the spartan browser and integrate into windows 10, without releasing the windows 10 source code. I read spartan browser will accept chrome extensions, so it has to have some open source code.


About selling.

Selling Free Software - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation

It also depends if the ESXI or Vmware kernel is based on Busybox or Toybox. ESX was removed from the all products.

The reason Bitware traffic light doesn't have to release the bit defender source code, is you have to download the extension from Mozilla add-on site, so it technically not distributed. That is allowed by one of GPLs. You can put you software on your website, for free or cost. As long as you do not distribute it, you don't have to release the source code to licensees.

I see the vmware can charge for it. So, the only violation if any, is not proper credit. As far as the licensing, technically the source code only has to release them to the licensee, it does not have to be published.


Unfortunately, in the U.S. things can get a little mucky with the GPL, DCMA, Copyrights, Pattens. We can legally use VLC player to play most media but can't play dvd legally on Linux unless we buy Fluendo or similar dvd player.

Hi there

??

VLC works perfectly on most Linux distros - but in any case who bothers with DVD's any more --a dying piece of hardware.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[groze]

@Alejandro85

About Google chrome

Microsoft Spartan: Chrome Extensions targeted for native support

I read the gpl by the way.

Here is where I got some of the information I posted.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

It is interesting reading.

One thing I am little confused on is How software that doesn't have GPL is allowed not to release the source code if they port their software to Linux? I guess they use LGPL or BSD license.

@jimbo45

You are in Iceland and you can legally use VLC media to play dvd but you have to add a certain files to play them. I read one U.S. court case that said you can use the file provided you purchased the dvd. However, the U.S. copyright office disagrees with the judges decision and issued that the previous rules still apply. I don't know how the copyright office has power to overwright a federal judge decision. The person who made that file now lives in the U.S., no one has gone after him. That file is also on U.S. servers. I still rent videos because it is cheaper than on-line videos and no subscription required and yes I know about Amazon, they also have higher rental cost.

 

[ThrashZone]

I'd say anyone that has a bunch of dvd's use dvd's
There's allot of convenient places where dvd's are available = no streaming issues.......
Old school plug and play

 

[andrew129260]

It doesn't matter what the government considers legal or not with what you can do with your pc.

The likelyhood of them catching you is almost none. They have bigger things to worry about.

 

[RoasterMen]

It doesn't matter what the government considers legal or not with what you can do with your pc.

The likelyhood of them catching you is almost none. They have bigger things to worry about.

 

[jimbo45]

@Alejandro85

About Google chrome

Microsoft Spartan: Chrome Extensions targeted for native support

I read the gpl by the way.

Here is where I got some of the information I posted.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

It is interesting reading.

One thing I am little confused on is How software that doesn't have GPL is allowed not to release the source code if they port their software to Linux? I guess they use LGPL or BSD license.

@jimbo45

You are in Iceland and you can legally use VLC media to play dvd but you have to add a certain files to play them. I read one U.S. court case that said you can use the file provided you purchased the dvd. However, the U.S. copyright office disagrees with the judges decision and issued that the previous rules still apply. I don't know how the copyright office has power to overwright a federal judge decision. The person who made that file now lives in the U.S., no one has gone after him. That file is also on U.S. servers. I still rent videos because it is cheaper than on-line videos and no subscription required and yes I know about Amazon, they also have higher rental cost.

Hi there

I never added a SINGLE file to the VLC package installed from Videolan - now I don't know what the law is in the USA involving the use probably of some form of LIBDVDCSS which I believe is part of the de-encryption mechanism - but I don't see how a poor user is going to be issued with any sort of Court Summons for installing a FREELY and LEGALLY available piece of software which consists of a single install file.

Whether on Linux or Windows I haven't had to add any extra software for some while now --years ago you had to add the LIBDVDCSS library separately - especially on Linux but those days are LONG GONE.

In any case I think the Movie studios would be happy you actually PAID for the DVD to play it rather than use a Pirated download. In addition I agree with the other posters -- most Govts have much more important things to worry about than people playing DVD's on their computers / phones / tablets rather than a TV.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[Alejandro85]

@Alejandro85

About Google chrome

Microsoft Spartan: Chrome Extensions targeted for native support

I read the gpl by the way.

Here is where I got some of the information I posted.

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html

https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

It is interesting reading.

One thing I am little confused on is How software that doesn't have GPL is allowed not to release the source code if they port their software to Linux? I guess they use LGPL or BSD license.

The article only says about IE12 accepting Chrome extensions, it doesn't even mention how it will be implemented, which makes me think that they didn't took code from Chromium at all (or maybe the did, but no clue about that).
Even then.......
The Chromium project is open source, but not GPL. According to Wikipedia it's licensed under a variety of licenses, more permissive than GPL (BSD, MIT, the "do anything" ones) which don't require derived projects to also be open source, so they don't need to release anything even if the use some code from there. There are other Chromium-based browser that are proprietary too.
Even then.......
If Chromium were GPL, MS would only need to release the code of IE (that is, "spartan" ), not the whole operating system, because other parts are completely separate programs that only happen to bundle IE and don't use open source code at all.

Porting software to Linux forces no requirement to release code at all. Legally it's considered to be a modification of the original project, hence it must follow its licenses. It hasn't anything to do with the Linux license, because you're not using Linux code at all, just your own. In fact, there is a lot of proprietary programs that run under Linux: List of proprietary software for Linux - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neither of those are free software, nor are GPLd, even though they can run under Linux. Each one follows its own licenses, as the OS license don't affect the programs it runs.
In the same line of thinkin, if it were the case, each program written for Windows would be owned by Microsoft

 

[groze]

Hi there

I never added a SINGLE file to the VLC package installed from Videolan - now I don't know what the law is in the USA involving the use probably of some form of LIBDVDCSS which I believe is part of the de-encryption mechanism - but I don't see how a poor user is going to be issued with any sort of Court Summons for installing a FREELY and LEGALLY available piece of software which consists of a single install file.

Whether on Linux or Windows I haven't had to add any extra software for some while now --years ago you had to add the LIBDVDCSS library separately - especially on Linux but those days are LONG GONE.

In any case I think the Movie studios would be happy you actually PAID for the DVD to play it rather than use a Pirated download. In addition I agree with the other posters -- most Govts have much more important things to worry about than people playing DVD's on their computers / phones / tablets rather than a TV.

Cheers
jimbo

That is odd. You may not need to decrypt in Iceland. VideoLAN - Legal read the section about LIBDVDCSS. As I said there was a U.S. court case, even though the copyright office disagrees with the Judge, He/She said you can download any file to play the dvd you legally purchased or rented.

 

[lehnerus2000]

In addition I agree with the other posters -- most Govts have much more important things to worry about than people playing DVD's on their computers / phones / tablets rather than a TV.

It's much easier to round up ordinary people, than criminals and terrorists (especially if it pleases their corporate donors).

 

[jimbo45]

In addition I agree with the other posters -- most Govts have much more important things to worry about than people playing DVD's on their computers / phones / tablets rather than a TV.

It's much easier to round up ordinary people, than criminals and terrorists (especially if it pleases their corporate donors).

However what's the point if you only get 2 USD out of them -- if the Lawyers pursue those ridiculous multi-million dollar lawsuits against individuals how do they think they would EVER get paid in any case.

There's a MEGA difference between getting ANY court judgement and actually being able to ENFORCE it. (CIVIL cases -- Criminal cases are another matter entirely). Even if you are 100% right - how in the world will you manage to get a million dollar claim against someone with ZERO assets and on a minimum wage - or even not working. Even in the USA I think people realize there's a huge difference between suing someone and actually GETTING any money back. The only winners are as always the Lawyers.

AFAIK nobody is being harassed for using VLC -- an EXCELLENT piece of FREE software in every way.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[groze]

With the new updated Federal Regulation, People on U.S. Social Security that have direct deposit or SS debit card the U.S. account can not be frozen from a garnishment/judgement order if you have less the two months backpay if you have more only part can be frozen and garnished but you can still get it back. The Bank/CU/Debit card can't even charge a garnishment fee unless you have more then two months worth of Social Security in the account. This also applies to a few other federal benefits.

 

[lehnerus2000]

However what's the point if you only get 2 USD out of them -- if the Lawyers pursue those ridiculous multi-million dollar lawsuits against individuals how do they think they would EVER get paid in any case.

I saw a US news item a few years ago (2009) claiming that Exxon had finally paid the fines they received as a result of the Exxon-Valdez disaster.
The story finished by saying that Exxon spent more money fighting the fine than if they had just paid it in the first place.

Note:
It was not clear if they meant the fine + punitive damages or just the fine.

Even if you are 100% right - how in the world will you manage to get a million dollar claim against someone with ZERO assets and on a minimum wage - or even not working. Even in the USA I think people realize there's a huge difference between suing someone and actually GETTING any money back. The only winners are as always the Lawyers.

Everyone apart from the RIAA apparently:

RIAA Spent $17.6 Million In Lawsuits... To Get $391,000 In Settlements?
​

Companies apparently learned the lesson and they moved to a variant of the Organised Crime model, "pay us some cash or we'll sue":

The RIAA? Amateurs. Here’s how you sue 14,000+ P2P users
​

They even tried it here in Australia.

AFAIK nobody is being harassed for using VLC -- an EXCELLENT piece of FREE software in every way.

I haven't heard of anyone being sued for using VLC either.