[HN Gopher] John Deere's ongoing GPL violations: What's next
___________________________________________________________________
John Deere's ongoing GPL violations: What's next
Author : pabs3
Score : 294 points
Date : 2023-03-16 15:17 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sfconservancy.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (sfconservancy.org)
| burstmode wrote:
| OK, so what exactly are the John Deere programs they think are a
| GPL violation ? There's no info about that in the article.
| kwiens wrote:
| There's more inforation in Sick Codes Jailbreak talk.
| https://www.fierceelectronics.com/sensors/sick-codes-jailbre...
|
| The display is a full blown touchscreen GUI built using Linux
| and all sorts of OSS tools. The LTE gateway is another linux
| machine.
| abotsis wrote:
| I think, even if for the pure marketing of it, one of Deere's
| competitors should seize the opportunity to offer "open"
| equipment. I'm not a farmer, but I did grow up fixing my own cars
| and such... I can't imagine any "killer feature" farm equipment
| has that Deere provides that would require such a closed package.
| Reliability and serviceability could be those killer features.
| pacetherace wrote:
| Farming equipment is quite expensive and typically what is used
| in a particular region depends on the dealer network. And the
| dealer network what gives John Deere the power to play these
| dirty games.
| bacchusracine wrote:
| At this point it's starting to seem like the GPL was only ever a
| bluff and it's being called on us now....
|
| As someone who uses Linux every day this hurts and makes me
| wonder what the future will be as hardware gets locked away from
| us with the very tools we made to use it.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| It will be grim, since everything will be silos, and monetized,
| and perhaps not even interoperable anymore, to really emphasize
| the lock-in.
| [deleted]
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| It's only a bluff if we do nothing about it. Maybe the
| government doesn't have the enforcement spine for the job, but
| if they can make it clear who is in violation, well now we have
| a list of targets. We just need to create some incentives to
| not be on that list.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| GPL for Linux is not a Bluff, it is a stated fact they (the
| Linux Foundation) will not enforce it. Publically stated, and
| supported by their corporate overlords... err "sponsors"
| SllX wrote:
| Can you cite the page?
|
| I found a page talking about how they won't enforce their
| trademark against people who use it, but this is not the same
| as not enforcing copyright.
|
| Thanks in advance!
| phpisthebest wrote:
| If you know, and followed the enactment of the "Linux
| Kernel Community Enforcement Statement " [1] [2] [3] which
| started out as an effort to stop a "rouge" developer from
| being a copyright toll, then further devolved with
| interactions with the core linux group and SFC based on a
| fundamental difference in the understanding of the GPL
| problem, and what GPL enforcement should be
|
| SFC wants to use the law as a stick, while trying to get
| people to comply with out legal action. Many core members
| prefer to not even engage with the threat of legal action
| at all, they believe that simply asking nicely will get
| companies like VmWare to comply. of course this is rarely
| true but.....
|
| [1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/
| drive...
|
| [2] http://kroah.com/log/blog/2017/10/16/linux-kernel-
| community-...
|
| [3] http://kroah.com/log/blog/2017/10/16/linux-kernel-
| community-...
| acedTrex wrote:
| GPL has always been mostly a bluff, it's occasionally attempted
| to be enforced but its a drop in the bucket compared to the
| ocean of infringement.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| This gives me hope for using Arduino and LGPL.
|
| I want to make a product, I don't even mind giving away the
| code. I'm just worried since its an embedded system, its hard
| to update or whatever. As many times as I read the legal
| stuff, its over my head. I can't understand how you can let
| someone update part of the code on something compiled. Its
| not like I'm going to have a screen on my device to let users
| read the code either.
|
| If someone wants to fight a legal battle, its really due to
| my incompetence, not malice.
| mfuzzey wrote:
| >I can't understand how you can let someone update part of
| the code on something compiled.
|
| You can provide your closed source part as a precompiled
| library or object file together with the source code for
| the LGPL part and build scripts that let the recipient
| relink it with a (possibly modified version of) the LGPL
| code to generate a new final binary.
|
| A pain yes but not impossible. Having a screen or not is
| irrelevant, nothing says the recipient has to access the
| source on the same device as the binaries run.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I think it is their stated aim at sfc to enforce
| compliance, not to sue. If they see you are not complying
| they will ask you to comply. Doesn't sound like something
| to be scared of?
| saghm wrote:
| IANAL, but I don't think that the part in the GPL about
| modification makes any requirement that you facilitate
| modifying compiled binaries. My understanding is that the
| requirement is essentially that distributing the binary
| requires you to distribute the source as well; if someone
| modifies that source code you provide and distributes a
| binary they compile from that modified code, they need to
| share the modifications as source as well.
|
| This is also my understanding of why the AGPL was created
| to try to close the loophole of running GPL code on the
| backend; since running code on a server doesn't entail
| distributing the server binary to people who access the
| service, the GPL didn't enforce any requirements on sharing
| any modifications to code that was modified and used as
| part of the backend for the service. Some felt that this
| went against the spirit of the GPL, so a new license that
| made this also explicitly disallowed was created.
|
| As for the LGPL, my recollection is that it differs from
| the GPL in creating an exception for dynamically linking to
| the compiled binary; the phrasing of the (non-L) GPL
| requires that any "derivative works" of the GPL-licensed
| product (I can't remember if that's the exact term, but
| it's a something similarly general) must abide by the GPL,
| which could be interpreted as applying to something that
| dynamically links to a library licensed under the GPL.
| Licensing something under the LGPL gives permission for
| users to dynamically link to your product without requiring
| them to share the code linking to it.
| LawTalkingGuy wrote:
| For [L]GPLv2 it's super simple - release any changed code
| and anything that links closely to it. If you publish all
| your source you basically can't fail to do this right.
|
| For GPLv3, it's that simple most of the time. You talk
| about embedded which suggests you may be thinking primarily
| of the "tivoization" clauses designed to prevent user
| lockout. Again, if you're a fully open source project this
| will be hard to fail because the user should be able to
| just copy whatever you do in development. It's when you try
| to prevent user updates while allowing your own that this
| applies.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| That was basically my thought, I'm just worried that if I
| link to the code online, that someone could claim 'Well I
| don't have internet'. Bam lawsuit.
| h2odragon wrote:
| I suspect that publishing it public to the internet is
| sufficient. If you really wanna cover your ass offer to
| mail someone the source on a CD for "reasonable handling
| fees"... which can reasonably be fairly high if someone
| demands such service.
| zerocrates wrote:
| This was changed in GPLv3. To my reading, section 6(b)(2)
| means that if you're distributing a physical product, you
| can just include a link to a URL where the source can be
| downloaded for free.
|
| You _could_ read 6(b) to mean that you have to offer
| consumers the choice between physical-delivery-at-cost
| and for-free-download of the source... but I don 't think
| that's the right reading.
| joezydeco wrote:
| I'll chime with my experience in embedded systems. In the
| last 2-3 companies I've worked with the directive has been
| "no GPLv3/LGPLv3, period. You will be fired if you ship
| with it." The legal departments just don't want to deal
| with it at all.
| colechristensen wrote:
| Is there not some sort of legal defense fund organization to
| help enforce these licenses?
| joe_the_user wrote:
| The GPL has been validated in court many times by now. That
| doesn't mean they'll win this case but there's a significant
| amount of precedent protecting it at this point.
|
| Edit: It's remarkable to see a raft of uninformed comments
| here. What's up with that? Once most people in HN knew the
| story of Linux, Gnu and so forth.
| ikiris wrote:
| The more topics you are knowledgeable about on HN, the more
| glaring the mass lack of competence the comments generally
| have except for topics like algorithms. Especially on
| anything bordering economics, medicine, and some others. It's
| similar to knoll's law. The libertarian / austrian
| (economics) skews are sometimes wild, and equally wildly
| inaccurate, sometimes bordering on conspiracy / delusional
| thinking.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| I don't think I've gotten that much more knowledgeable in
| the last few years but maybe I should take that as the
| explanation for HN seeming to decline - it's certainly the
| most flattering possibility.
| sophacles wrote:
| Every now and then when I've got some time to kill I'll
| go look at old comment sections (particularly when Dang
| links previous iterations of a discussion) and compare it
| to what I see today. It turns out that the quality hasn't
| changed greatly, though viewpoints, popular gripes, etc
| may have. I've discovered that a lot of my thoughts about
| "hn is going to shit" are usually better phrased as "I
| dislike that this viewpoint is popular now" or "I've come
| around to seeing that differently". Particularly when it
| turns out I preserved my old viewpoint in the form of a
| comment on the old article.
|
| A related thing is: look through places where the crowd
| skews young/newb like r/programmerhumor. You'll see
| arguments, discussions, etc about things that might make
| you think "I thought that was settled ages ago" but in
| reality were just things you got experienced perspective
| on, and/or grew out of.
|
| People grow and change - usually in a slow and steady way
| that's hard to see in the mirror. I suspect you've picked
| up a lot of knowledge and some new perspectives - a few
| years is a long time!
| spacechild1 wrote:
| > The libertarian / austrian
|
| I am Austrian and I am a bit confused...
| ikiris wrote:
| sorry, meant specifically austrian school of economics
| there. Austrians the people are cool :)
| spacechild1 wrote:
| No worries! TIL
| goodpoint wrote:
| HN is becoming the tech sibling of 4chan
| return_to_monke wrote:
| hn is much more ... extreme
| smoldesu wrote:
| Who's Unix? I only know Steve Jobs and Jim Cramer.
| tssva wrote:
| > That doesn't mean they'll win this case
|
| As of yet there is no case to win or lose.
| whateveracct wrote:
| This is like saying copyright is a bluff because a corporate
| violates a person's rights and that person doesn't have the
| resources of a corporation to immediately go after them.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| It's sad. My grandfather before he passed last year owned and
| drove 64 1/2 mustang. Over it's lifetime he's had to repair it
| now and again but it's still running great almost 60 years later.
| How long until Tesla declares some year of cars no longer
| maintainable? How long until they stop pushing software updates?
| How long will the deny people the ability to repair their own
| cars?
| user3939382 wrote:
| Related, check out Rossmann's new video on how they've corrupted
| the Farm Bureau that's supposed to represent the farmers, and
| thereby got their lobby group to surreptitiously lobby _against_
| their own industry by killing meaningful provisions in right to
| repair.
|
| John Deere is a horrible company whose upper management needs to
| be wiped from the industry.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| It really does beg the question, if JD is so bad why do people
| keep buying them? Perhaps RTR just isn't as important to people
| as the tech crowd thinks.
| npteljes wrote:
| Buying something is a not a simple issue, there are multiple
| factors that go into the decision, and for many, buying
| something is not really a decision either, because the odds
| are stacked against them. Also, it might be that JD is not
| horrible to each buyer equally: some might not perceive these
| issues at all. And some might just treat it as a business,
| and write off the grievances as business expenses. They are
| okay as there are also other things to take care of. Amazon
| is also a company with many criticisms, and yet, they are
| very popular. And I'm sure the list goes on.
|
| So from an economic pov: it's a market failure. From an
| individual's pov: because purchase is complex.
|
| Regarding your last point: "Perhaps RTR just isn't as
| important to people as the tech crowd thinks."
|
| I agree, and still think RTR is very important. For a
| comparison, take any public health issue. Are, for example,
| unhealthy foods popular? Very much so. Is it still worth it
| for the people to regulate it? Absolutely. Issues such as
| this are not well served by treating it as a popularity
| contest, because if it would be up to the children, all of
| the meals would be candy. Experts, who have much deeper
| insights into the workings of their area can give much better
| advice.
| freedomben wrote:
| JD is still one of the best of the (horrible) options, and in
| some areas is the only option. Also, most of the people I
| have talked to about it had no idea how bad it was. They've
| been buying JD all their lives and some of those purchases
| stick around for decades, so many of them have other JD
| equipment that is older and much more friendly. They assume
| things are still the same.
| kerkeslager wrote:
| Ah yes, as usual, HN provides the most sociopathic take
| possible within the first few comments.
| CogitoCogito wrote:
| > if JD is so bad why do people keep buying them?
|
| I guess the logical conclusion is that a company can be "bad"
| and yet still have people buy from them.
|
| Edit: To be clear, I guess I'd just say your question is sort
| of illogical. I see no reason one should assume a company
| needs to be "good" for people to buy from it.
| hajile wrote:
| Few alternatives (when looking for equipment beyond a basic
| tractor) and most are just as bad.
| user3939382 wrote:
| This translates to an absurd argument that anything large
| companies do is right because if they didn't do right they
| wouldn't be large.
|
| For example: Why do people keep buying BP gas after they were
| responsible for one of the biggest environmental disasters in
| history? Maybe people don't care about the environment?
|
| The answer in all cases is that being a wealthy company with
| a lot of market penetration doesn't mean your actions are
| ethically or morally right, or that your customers agree with
| them.
| spenczar5 wrote:
| Just as nobody was ever fired for buying IBM, nobody was ever
| fired for buying a Deere.
| ronsor wrote:
| Speaking generally and not just about RTR, people often
| recognize something is "wrong" and that they're negatively
| affected, but they also don't really understand what's going
| on, so they can't do much other than complain when they get
| screwed over.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _if JD is so bad why do people keep buying them_
|
| Why do people keep buying Samsung or Apple when there are
| better products? They certainly don't respect the right to
| repair either.
|
| Likewise, people buy JD because it's a well-known brand.
|
| If you asked people what they wanted 100 years ago, they
| would say they wanted a faster horse. It's hard to advocate
| for something that people don't realize they don't have.
| MikusR wrote:
| There is a better phone with stylus than the one Samsung
| makes?
| fossuser wrote:
| > Why do people keep buying Samsung or Apple when there are
| better products?
|
| Because there aren't better products? Knowing nothing, I'd
| suspect the same of JD.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Farmers are pretty knowledgeable about the equipment
| they're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on. The
| idea they're just picking JD because of name recognition is
| insulting.
| chasil wrote:
| I understand that, when they work, the products are
| amazing, even up to the point that Deere can obtain
| satellite imagery of a farm and work it autonomously,
| without the owner of the equipment present.
|
| Many times, the products do not work, and repair is
| locked to approved equipment that is confirmed and
| authorized remotely - no authorization, no repair, no
| operational equipment.
|
| The last Defcon conference shattered the control that the
| corporation is able to exercise over this equipment,
| because of bad security design. There is a major effort
| to rethink (and improve) this control, but everything on
| the market now is irretrievably broken from the
| perspective of the embedded electronics preventing
| unauthorized repairs.
|
| There are other problems, one involving a fatality at a
| recent union strike, the GPL violations above, right to
| repair, and the (lack of) staff to correctly address said
| adversity.
|
| It will be interesting to see what transpires.
| wander_homer wrote:
| Maybe I'm just in my small bubble and/or the situation in
| Germany is quite different, but when I look at the farms
| in the area I grew up in, including my father's farm,
| then most of them are absolutely loyal to whatever brand
| their family has been using for centuries. My father
| didn't even test or look at others brands when he bought
| his tractors.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > Why do people keep buying Samsung or Apple when there are
| better products?
|
| Because most people don't care about the right to repair or
| are completely uniformed. Neither of which should apply to
| a professional farmer.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| individual decision makers on farms are systematically
| replaced by corporate farming over decades; restricting sales
| to authorized dealers, and assigning those dealers exclusive
| territory, was done systematically for the last seventy
| years. If JD dismantles effective competition in the 1970s,
| who exactly is there to provide competitive alternatives? It
| is a "captured market" in the USA. "view from the City"
| lyubalesya wrote:
| [dead]
| tcmart14 wrote:
| My understanding, most farmers are backed into a corner where
| there is not a viable option to go with someone else. JD has
| extensively made access to repair facilities convenient and
| sometimes for many farmers, it is the only repair center
| remotely. If they go with a tractor from a different brand
| and it does need to be taken to a repair facility, you may
| have to ship it or drive it a long way or wait for a tech
| travel to your farm. This might mean your tractor is out of
| service for weeks. But JD has repair centers all over and JD
| can turn your tractor around in 3 days or less.
|
| In highschool, I worked a couple seasons picking tobacco.
| Farmers love to be able to repair their tractors. Repair and
| maintenance work is something that can also give them
| something to do over the winter when they are not working the
| fields much if they limp along until then. Most farmers
| purchase them because as mentioned, there isn't really a
| reasonable alternative in the event it is something that
| actually does need to "go into the shop." I also would not be
| surprised if most of JD's sales were from corporate farms and
| smalls farmers are still using their grand daddy's tractor.
| The farm I worked on, the farmer was still using a 50 year
| old international harvester. Doing all of his own maintenance
| and repair work.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| "Seems to be standard practice for Chinese companies"
|
| "Stop the sale of products that violate licenses in markets the
| US controls"
|
| It seems Xiaomi is in good company ;)
| firstlink wrote:
| After two years, the SFC is escalating to "asking publicly". Wow,
| they really are great stewards of the copyrights which have been
| assigned to them!
| worik wrote:
| The legal system is glacial
|
| "Justice delayed, is justice denied " is supposed to be one of
| the principles of jurisprudence, it seems to have been
| forgotten
| zamalek wrote:
| How quickly does copyright get addressed when it comes to
| e.g. RIAA?
| tapoxi wrote:
| How is it glacial? This is resolved with a copyright
| infringement lawsuit. Filing the suit is entirely on them.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Yes, but the endgame of the GPL is not to generate
| copyright infringement lawsuits[0]. It's to compel
| modifiers of the code to license their changes back and
| respect user freedom - i.e. to keep the software
| effectively uncopyrighted.
|
| If you sue in a court of law, they will give you money
| damages, and _maybe_ an injunction specifically requiring
| the developer delete their copy of the program. Under no
| circumstances will a court demand specific performance of
| GPL obligations to release source code. But that 's what
| the SFC wants. So the only way to get people to comply with
| the GPL is to use the threat of a lawsuit to encourage
| compliance.
|
| This is contrary to what we normally think of with
| copyright litigation, but that's mostly because the
| lawsuits we see are either breakdowns of negotiation, or
| against individual infringers and pirate sites that would
| _never_ be granted a license under any circumstances
| whatsoever. When you want a licensee to actually _do
| something_ , you are better off _threatening_ litigation
| and negotiating rather than going straight to the nuclear
| option.
|
| [0] Nobody told that to the Lawnmower Man[1] unfortunately
|
| [1] Larry Ellison
| nier wrote:
| Did you just anthropomorphize Larry Ellison?
| serf wrote:
| it sometimes strengthens a metaphor to anthropomorphize
| the non human entities.
| worik wrote:
| > How is it glacial?
|
| These cases take years
|
| In other parts of the (in)justice system people languish in
| jail, and on bail, waiting for their day in court.
|
| The legal systems of Western "democracies " have become a
| money fountain, and are loosing the sense of justice
| SllX wrote:
| Filing a suit does not take years. If you know you have a
| case, decide if you're going to sue, if yes, then you
| bang out the paperwork and file it with the appropriate
| court. Trying to fight what ought to be a lawsuit through
| PR isn't going to get you any closer to an injunction or
| discovery but is a red flag that maybe the one engaging
| in the PR battle doesn't feel confident they have a case.
|
| EDIT: I dug into it a little. SFC appears to be dug into
| a lawsuit against Vizio. It makes sense, even law firms
| have finite resources, and there's some indication that
| the outcome of this lawsuit could give a clearer
| indication of the viability of a suit against John Deere.
| My original point on the time it takes to file a suit
| stands though.
| simoncion wrote:
| > Filing a suit does not take years.
|
| Correct. Closing out the suit takes years. As was said:
|
| > These cases take years
| neilv wrote:
| I'd prefer something a bit closer to the other end of the
| spectrum of defending open software licenses.
|
| The other end of the spectrum might be an outcome like "Some
| GPL library authors find themselves suddenly owning a major
| farming machinery company". :)
| elkos wrote:
| Me too. If the risk of not adhering to a license is minimal,
| a for-profit organization has fewer incentives to do so.
|
| The US copyright law is draconian, copyright violations are
| felony violations with 10 years prison and 100k$ fines, the
| Aaron Swartz taught us that.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-03-16 23:01 UTC)