{"id":27095,"date":"2021-12-04T15:48:23","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T15:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/open-source-vizio-lawsuit-takes-an-ugly-turn.html"},"modified":"2021-12-04T15:48:23","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T15:48:23","slug":"open-source-vizio-lawsuit-takes-an-ugly-turn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/open-source-vizio-lawsuit-takes-an-ugly-turn.html","title":{"rendered":"Open-source Vizio lawsuit takes an ugly turn"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC)<\/a>, a non-profit organization that promotes open-source software and defends the free software General Public License (GPL)<\/a>, sued major TV vendor Vizio<\/a> for abusing the GPL. Specifically, Vizio is using Linux’s source code and other open-source software, such as BusyBox, U-Boot, bash, gawk, tar, Glibc, and FFmpegis, in its SmartCast OS<\/a> TV firmware. These programs are protected under the GPL version 2 (GPLv2)<\/a> and the Lesser GPL (LGPL)<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also:\u00a0<\/strong>Software Freedom Conservancy sues Vizio for GPL violations<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

All the SFC requires is that Vizio makes this code available to the public as per its licenses. Vizio won’t hear of it. <\/p>\n

As Bradley M. Kuhn, the SFC’s Hacker-in-Residence, and Karen M. Sandler, the SFC’s Executive Director, wrote in a recent blog post<\/a>, Vizio has not released the source code. Nor has the company proposed a Complete Corresponding Source (CCS)<\/a> candidate for the SFC. With the latter, the SFC could have provided Vizio with “additional feedback,” so that the SFC “could help [Vizio] get consumers who bought their TVs the source code they deserve.”<\/p>\n

What did Vizio choose to do? The SFC leaders state:<\/p>\n

\n

Vizio filed a request to “remove” the case from California State Court (into US federal court)<\/a>, which indicates Vizio’s belief that consumers have no third-party beneficiary rights under copyleft<\/a>! In other words, Vizio’s answer to this complaint is not to comply with the copyleft licenses, but instead imply that Software Freedom Conservancy — and all other purchasers of the devices who might want to assert their right under GPL and LGPL to complete corresponding source — have no right to even ask for that source code.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

In other words, “Vizio’s filing implies that only copyright holders, and no one else, have a right to ask for source code under the GPL and LGPL.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

That’s not how open-source software works.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\n<\/section>\n

But, wait, there’s more: “Vizio has gone a disturbing step further and asked the federal United States District Court for the Central District of California to agree to the idea that not only do you as a consumer have no right to ask for source code but that Californians have no right to even ask their state courts to consider the question!” <\/p>\n

The SFC refuses to accept this fundamental assault on the GPL and, by implication, all other open-source licenses. The SFC intends to fight back. <\/p>\n

The organization also encourages everyone to read the case’s filings<\/a>. The SFC has paid the Pacer<\/a> fees and used the Recap<\/a> browser plugin so that all the documents in the case are freely available to anyone via the Recap project archives<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you’d like to help SFC with this lawsuit and their ongoing defense of free and open-source software, the non-profit urges you to\u00a0become an SFC Sustainer Member<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Article source: https:\/\/www.zdnet.com\/article\/open-source-vizio-lawsuit-takes-an-ugly-turn\/#ftag=RSSbaffb68<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a non-profit organization that promotes open-source software and defends the free software General Public License (GPL), sued major TV vendor Vizio for abusing the GPL. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-27095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-linux-updates","tag-linux-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t