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Re: [News] GPL Gets Tested in Court

Killing 3 birds with one stone (i.e. replying to three posts in one here)


"Mark Kent" <mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:a9l0t3-2o.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
begin  oe_protect.scr
[H]omer <spam@xxxxxxx> espoused:
Roy Schestowitz wrote:
IChessU vs. Jin - The Story (a GPL legal case)

,----[ Quote ]
| I've then spent a week or so trying to explain Alexander that it does
| not matter that the A/V library is "a separate library" and that in order
| to comply with the GPL, he must publish the source code to that too. Our
| last chat ended with me telling him that I am contacting an IP lawyer and
| him telling me to enjoy it.
|
| Since then, I have contacted an IP lawyer, Jonathan Klinger. We have
| sent Alexander and his lawyers a letter, detailing their violations
| and asking them to stop.
`----


http://www.jinchess.com/ichessu/

As far as I can see, the lawyers have exchanged noticed. It hasn't reached the courts yet, and so the GPL has not been tested in courts yet.



From that page:

"A few weeks went by, during which I've advised Alexander, free of
charge, on some technical issues (which servers, clients are usable and
which aren't), talked to the (Russian) development team he hired etc."

Oh dear, he contracted Russian Mafia "meds spammers", then violated the
GPL. I don't think a "lawyer" is going to help, somehow.

Not all Russians are spammers or work for the Mafia.


Perhaps the FSF would help this chap?

Honestly, I don't think Jin has much of a case.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation
<quote>
Mere aggregation of two programs means putting them side by side on the same CD-ROM or hard disk. We use this term in the case where they are separate programs, not parts of a single program. In this case, if one of the programs is covered by the GPL, it has no effect on the other program.


Combining two modules means connecting them together so that they form a single larger program. If either part is covered by the GPL, the whole combination must also be released under the GPL--if you can't, or won't, do that, you may not combine them.

What constitutes combining two parts into one program? This is a legal question, which ultimately judges will decide. We believe that a proper criterion depends both on the mechanism of communication (exec, pipes, rpc, function calls within a shared address space, etc.) and the semantics of the communication (what kinds of information are interchanged).

If the modules are included in the same executable file, they are definitely combined in one program. If modules are designed to run linked together in a shared address space, that almost surely means combining them into one program.

By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program.
</quote>


IChessU uses sockets, so that puts it into the clause described by the last paragraph. "If the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program."

However, all that the socket communication stuff seems to be doing is VoIP stuff, which is hardly at all related to chess in any way.

http://www.jinchess.com/ichessu/
<quote>
So, what IChessU have released was everything (which is 95% my code and 5% theirs) except this audio/video over IP library and the few Java classes used to interface with it.


I've then spent a week or so trying to explain Alexander that it does not matter that the A/V library is "a separate library" and that in order to comply with the GPL, he must publish the source code to that too.
</quote>


So my understanding is that:

(*) the unnamed narrator developed Jin.
(*) Alexander Rabinovich developed IChessU based on the Jin code. He added some chess code, and threw in a VoIP client.
(*) The unnamed narrator wants Rabinovich to release their code under GPL.
(*) Rabinovich released the chess code under GPL, will not release the VoIP code, possibly because he doesn't own rights to that VoIP code in the first place (it was developed by a 3rd party Russian team).
(*) The unnamed narrator has "contacted an IP lawyer, Jonathan Klinger. We have sent Alexander and his lawyers a letter, detailing their violations and asking them to stop."


But stop what? It looks like IChessU's business model is only marginally related with the software. They are selling a service, which is chess tutoring. You download the client for free, and you pay a monthly fee to have access to 8 hours worth of tutoring, and a match-making service to match you against other players of your level.

This is one of those cases where I think the GPL is being unfairly used to assimilate code that the authors do not wish to license under the GPL (specifically the VoIP code). Regardless of whether the unnamed narrator is legally in the right or not (it would be up to a legal judge to decide on that), I think this borders a bit on the unethical side.

From the accounts on the website (we haven't heard Rabinovich's side of the
story), it sounds like the narrator and Rabinovich were on more or less friendly terms, but things got sour when money got involved. I can sympathize with both sides.

The narrator feels like he's getting screwed out of $4000 (for now, I won't address whether or not that feeling is justified). Rabinovich feels that because the code is GPL, he has every right to use that code as long as he complies with the GPL license, and as far as he's concerned, he HAS complied with the GPL license, at least in spirit, if not to the letter of the law (again, it will be up to a judge to determine whether there is legal compliance or not in this situation).

I'm not sure the narrator is in a very strong bargaining position anyway. It looks like even if Rabinovich loses the legal battle, he still has a lot of options. Chess is such a commonly implemented game (often a university level programming assignment), that surely there must be a BSD or public domain client available. And even if there aren't, there seems to be plenty of VoIP code that already is under GPL at http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Open+Source+VOIP+Software

- Oliver


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