153 lines
8.2 KiB
HTML
153 lines
8.2 KiB
HTML
{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}
|
|
{% block subtitle %}GPL Compliance Project For Linux Developers - {% endblock %}
|
|
{% block submenuselection %}VMwareLawsuitFAQ{% endblock %}
|
|
{% block content %}
|
|
<h1>Frequently Asked Questions about Christoph Hellwig's VMware Lawsuit</h1>
|
|
|
|
<p>Conservancy maintains this
|
|
<acronym title="Frequently Asked Questions">FAQ</acronym> list regarding
|
|
<a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware
|
|
in Germany over alleged GPL violations on Linux</a> as a service to the
|
|
Free Software community, and in particular, the copyleft community. Conservancy
|
|
realizes this lawsuit generates many questions and interest
|
|
from the community. Legal counsel (both Conservancy's own, and
|
|
Christoph's lawyer, Till Jaeger) correctly advise us to limit our public
|
|
comments regarding specific details of the case while litigation remains
|
|
pending in court. Nevertheless, Conservancy, as a
|
|
non-profit charity serving the public good, seeks to be as transparent as
|
|
possible. If you have additional questions you'd like to see answered
|
|
here, please <a href="mailto:info@sfconservancy.org">email
|
|
<info@sfconservancy.org></a>, but understand that we may often need
|
|
to answer: <q>We cannot comment on this while litigation is pending</q>.</p>
|
|
|
|
<dl>
|
|
<dt>Who is the Plaintiff in the lawsuit?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Christoph is one of most active developers of the Linux kernel. He has
|
|
contributed 279.653 lines of code to the latest Linux 3.19 kernel, and
|
|
thus ranks 20th amongst the 1,340 developers involved in that release.
|
|
Christoph also ranks 4th among those who have reviewed third-party source
|
|
code, tirelessly corrected and commented on other developers'
|
|
contributions.</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Are there any court documents to read?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Not currently. Court proceedings are not public by default in Germany
|
|
(unlike in the USA). Conservancy will continue to update this FAQ with
|
|
information that Conservancy knows about the case. We would all also
|
|
welcome an agreement with VMware whereby both sides would agree to publish
|
|
all Court documents. </dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Who is funding this lawsuit?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Conservancy has engaged in a grant agreement with Christoph Hellwig for
|
|
the purposes of pursuing this specific legal action in Germany.
|
|
Conservancy is funding this legal action specifically as part of
|
|
Conservancy's program activity in
|
|
its <a href="/linux-compliance/about.html">GPL Compliance
|
|
Project for Linux Developers</a>.</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Is this the Great Test Case of Combined / Derivative Works?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>This case is specifically regarding a combined work that VMware
|
|
allegedly created by combining their own code (“vmkernel”) with
|
|
portions of Linux's code, which was licensed only under GPLv2. As such,
|
|
this, to our knowledge, marks the first time an enforcement case is
|
|
exclusively focused on this type of legal question relating to GPL.
|
|
However, there are so many different ways to make combined and/or
|
|
derivative works that are covered by GPL that no single case could possibly
|
|
include all such issues. </dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Why must you file a lawsuit? Isn't there any other way to convince
|
|
VMware to comply with GPL?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd><p>Neither Conservancy nor Christoph takes this action lightly nor without
|
|
exhausting every other possible alternative first. This lawsuit is the
|
|
outgrowth of years of effort to convince VMware to comply with GPL.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>In October 2011, Conservancy received a GPL violation report on
|
|
BusyBox for VMware's ESXi products. Conservancy opened the matter in its
|
|
usual, friendly, and non-confrontational way. Nevertheless, VMware
|
|
immediately referred Conservancy to VMware's outside legal counsel in the
|
|
USA, and Conservancy negotiated with VMware's legal counsel throughout
|
|
late 2011, 2012 and 2013. We exchanged and reviewed CCS candidates, and
|
|
admittedly, VMware made substantial and good efforts toward compliance on
|
|
BusyBox. However, VMware still refused to fix a few minor and one major
|
|
compliance problem that we discovered during the process. Namely, there
|
|
was a major violation regarding Linux itself that ultimately became
|
|
Christoph's key complaint in this lawsuit.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Meanwhile, when Conservancy realized in late 2012 there might be a major
|
|
Linux violation still present in VMware's ESXi products, Conservancy
|
|
representatives sought every industry contact we had for assistance,
|
|
including those from trade associations, companies (both competitors and
|
|
collaborators with VMware), and everyone else we could think of who might be
|
|
able to help us proceed with friendly negotiations that would achieve
|
|
compliance. While we cannot name publicly the people we asked for help
|
|
to convince VMware to comply, they include some of the most notable
|
|
executives, diplomats, and engineering managers in the Linux community. No
|
|
one was able to assist Conservancy in convincing VMware to comply with the
|
|
GPL. Then, in early 2014, VMware's outside legal counsel in the USA finally
|
|
took a clear and hard line with Conservancy stating that they would not
|
|
comply with the GPL on Linux and argued (in our view, incorrectly) that they
|
|
were already in compliance.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Conservancy in parallel informed Christoph fully of the details of the
|
|
Linux violation on Christoph's copyrights, and based on Conservancy's
|
|
findings, Christoph began his own investigation and confirmed
|
|
Conservancy's compliance conclusions. Christoph then began his own
|
|
enforcement effort with legal representation from Till Jaeger. Christoph has
|
|
been unable to achieve compliance, either, through his negotiations in
|
|
2014. VMware's last offer was a proposal for a settlement agreement that VMware would
|
|
only provide if Christoph signed an NDA, and Christoph chose (quite
|
|
reasonably) not to sign an NDA merely to look at settlement offer.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Thus, this lawsuit comes after years of negotiations by Conservancy to
|
|
achieve compliance — negotiations that ended in an outright refusal by
|
|
VMware's lawyers to comply. Those events were then followed by a year of
|
|
work by Christoph and Till to achieve compliance in a separate action.</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>Simply put, Conservancy and Christoph fully exhausted every possible
|
|
non-litigation strategy and tactic to convince VMware to do the right thing
|
|
before filing this litigation.</p>
|
|
</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Can you explain further how VMware incorporated code from Linux into
|
|
their kernel?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Conservancy prepared this diagram to show the technical situation as we
|
|
understand it. The diagram compares the technical architecture of a full,
|
|
running Linux kernel with a full, running VMware kernel:
|
|
<p>
|
|
<img alt="[Diagram of Linux and VMware running kernels" src="/linux-compliance/linux-vs-vmkernel_en.png" width="519" height="392" />
|
|
</p>
|
|
|
|
<p>If you want to download the diagram, it's available
|
|
in <a href="/linux-compliance/linux-vs-vmkernel_en.svg">SVG
|
|
(English)</a>, <a href="/linux-compliance/linux-vs-vmkernel_en.png">PNG
|
|
(English)</a>, <a href="/linux-compliance/linux-vs-vmkernel_de.svg">SVG
|
|
(German)</a>, and <a href="/linux-compliance/linux-vs-vmkernel_de.png">PNG
|
|
(German)</a>.</p>
|
|
</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>I care about the future of copyleft and the GPL. How can I help this effort?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Conservancy needs <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">your immediate financial
|
|
support to proceed with this litigation</a>. Litigation costs are
|
|
unpredictable, and this lawsuit may take years to resolve. Conservancy is
|
|
prepared to fund this case through its conclusion, but we can only do so
|
|
with <a href="/supporter/"><em>your</em> support</a>. If you are an
|
|
individual who supports copyleft and wants to see it defended, please
|
|
donate now.</dd>
|
|
|
|
<dt>Why is the case in Germany?</dt>
|
|
|
|
<dd>Copyright infringement claims can be brought anywhere that distribution
|
|
of the copyrighted works occur. VMware distributes ESXi throughout the
|
|
world, but Germany is close to Christoph's home and his lawyer was
|
|
available to do the litigation work there. Finally, historically,
|
|
Mr. Jaeger's cases in Germany have usually achieved worldwide compliance on
|
|
the products at issue in those cases.</dd>
|
|
|
|
</dl>
|
|
{% endblock %}
|