Sony stole code from Lame in their rootkit

Sorry, just felt that a Syndrome quote would do well here...

Hi,

just for the sake of clarification. They didn't steal the code. Based upon non-disriminating clauses of GPL, they could ever use this code, but....they simply neglected all requirements of the LGPL and therefore broke the rules. So, I am not quite sure if this is stealing in the true sense of the word? Well, your mileage may vary!

btw: I would rather seeing them to make a considerable donation to FSF or something comparable. Bringing them to court for breaking the LGPL might lead to nowhere land. The rest of Sonys hypocrisy will speak for itself ....

regards

FSF does not work that way, i.e. they are not seeking monetary damages or payments. That is, just come into compliance with the rules. That should suffice in punishment particularly if your assertions are acurate.

I haven't brushed up on the LGPL lately, but I'm pretty sure the article got at least one thing wrong:

The purpose of the LGPL is to provide free software for those cases where a full GPL would not serve the goals of FOSS. The most significant points of departure is the absence of the source code availability requirement, and the requirement to license linked software under the GPL.

When you use code and do not fulfill the licensing requirement it is stealing. Second Stealing is the term the RIAA uses when people infringe on their Copyrighted material so why shouldn't we.

Hello

@bstadil



Well, I know that this is their official wording, but we don't have to get hooked here. Furthermore I doubt that this wording is approved by court, but I might be wrong due to my missing expertise in laws. In case of "intellectual property" we can see that companies and their allies prefer to make propaganda for terms that don't even exist in law codices. Should we overtake this only because they love to talk about IP. At least for Germany l can say that there's no official term for this. Despite this everyone loves to talk about "Geistiges Eigentum" ( the German pendant to intellectual property). By just taking over their views and attitudes we'll inevitably end up in dead end streets.

After all, no matter how we name it. If this goes to court , judge's view will only matter!

sincerely

Thomas - Germany is perhaps the only place where the GPL copyright has been tested and upheld.

No, I don't have proof. But we all know human nature, don't we, and we know corporate behavior, and anyone who doesn't believe that lots of closed-source commercial software contains thieved FOSS code, go stand in the naive corner.