Possible GPL violation: novero HT-4, HT-5 (used in many Volkswagen-group cars)

[Felix Domke]

novero / novero automotive (www.novero.com) builds a range of handsfree
car gateways which are used in many Volkswagen-group cars, for example
VW, Skoda, Seat, Bentley.

An example product is the Novero HT-5, which offsets bluetooth
connectivity, 3G, A2DP streaming, WiFi car integration. Usually these
products come integrated into a car, but they can be bought as a
retrofit part, too.

At least the HT-4 and HT-5 run U-Boot, Linux, Busybox and many other
GPL-licensed software. This can be easily found by attaching to a serial
port, which is available as test points on the board.

I was unable to find

- a GPL license in the owner's manual (but then again, I bought the car
second hand, so the previous owner may have just lost it)
- a written offer for the source code.

No software (neither binaries nor sourcecode) is available for download
on the manufacturers website. I tried to contact them with a website
form, but got no response.


What would be the right path to request a copy of the source code? Would
it be the car manufacturer (Volkswagen), the car dealer, or Novero itself?

Thanks,
Felix

[Robinson Tryon]

[GPL request for built-in car hardware]
...
What would be the right path to request a copy of the source code? Would it
be the car manufacturer (Volkswagen), the car dealer, or Novero itself?

Personally, I'd walk up the chain of ownership* and ask for source
from each of them. So that would look like this:

* You
* Previous owner (was he the first owner?)
* Dealership
* Manufacturer of the car (who presumably added the gateway to the car)
* Manufacturer (of the gateway)

As I understand the GPL, each entity in that chain was responsible for
passing-along the offer for source when transferring ownership of the
gateway/car.

What I find interesting is that the offer for source needs only be
valid for 3 years, yet cars are often sold and resold for many years
after that:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html

This creates a situation in which the original owner of the car may
enjoy the 4 Freedoms of Free Software, but subsequent owners and
operators of the car may not. So even if you have a piece of hardware
in your car containing GPLed software, you might have no standing to
request the source. Blarg.

--R

* I'm sure there's some neat Latin term for this -- lawyers: clue me in? :-)

[Ian Stirling]

This post might be inappropriate. Click to display it.

[Neil Brown]

Alice when she sold the car must have (in order to comply with the licence) accompany it with a _fresh_
written offer - from her - valid for three years. She cannot simply pass on the makers written offer, as she
sold the car - the transaction was commercial.
...
She has been negligent in her duties under the GPL, and she has in fact not complied with the license,
and may in principle face a civil action from Bob - who cannot legally sell the car he's bought.
She could also face possible criminal charges for copyright violation - this seems vanishingly unlikely.

I am not persuaded by this, as I am not sure what restricted act of copyright Alice performs when she transfers ownership of the car to Bob.

Unless Alice performs an act restricted by copyright, she does not require a licence, and I don't see transferring a product containing embedded software as an otherwise infringing act?



Neil

__________

Neil Brown
***@neilzone.co.uk | http://neilzone.co.uk

[Ian Stirling]

Post by Neil Brown

She has been negligent in her duties under the GPL, and she has in fact not complied with the license,
and may in principle face a civil action from Bob - who cannot legally sell the car he's bought.
She could also face possible criminal charges for copyright violation - this seems vanishingly unlikely.

I am not persuaded by this, as I am not sure what restricted act of copyright Alice performs when she transfers ownership of the car to Bob.
Unless Alice performs an act restricted by copyright, she does not require a licence, and I don't see transferring a product containing embedded software as an otherwise infringing act

This implies 'embedded' software has some special status in law, and
indeed that most of the messages
on this list about routers and other objects that do not come with
source are misguided, as the only
one with any obligation is the original manufacturer (and why then?).

I don't see any basis for this in what I know of copyright law.

The only permission Alice has to copy or distribute Linux comes from the
GPL * - it is explicitly laid down
that the authors only give permission according to the GPL (they are of
course free to licence it
otherwise).

In the case of a TV or a car bought new with no software licence
agreement it's not an
unreasonable position to take that the manufacturer has implicitly
licenced the software to any users
by the mere fact they are selling it.

Where the software has an explicit licence, it's hard to see how this
works - if I have a laptop, and I
install windows on it from bittorrent - and then sell this laptop - the
recipient doesn't magically get
a licenced copy of windows because I diddn't tell them it was unlicenced.

* and any fair use in copyright law that may apply.

[Neil Brown]

On 15 Dec 2013, at 11:17, Ian Stirling <***@mauve.plus.com> wrote:

Morning, Ian.

Post by Ian Stirling

Post by Neil Brown
Unless Alice performs an act restricted by copyright, she does not require a licence, and I don't see transferring a product containing embedded software as an otherwise infringing act

This implies 'embedded' software has some special status in law

I don't think that this is the case: it implies that, before a licence is required, one perform an act restricted by copyright.

To my mind, "distribution", in the sense of me giving you a CD containing software, for example, is not an act restricted by copyright (at least, not in the UK; other laws may differ).

Post by Ian Stirling
The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom—
(a)to copy the work (see section 17);
(b)to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18);
[F1(ba)to rent or lend the work to the public (see section 18A);]
(c)to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19);
[F2(d)to communicate the work to the public (see section 20);]
(e)to make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation to an adaptation (see section 21);
and those acts are referred to in this Part as the “acts restricted by the copyright”.

(You can see the whole Act, although probably not in quite its latest form, here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/contents)

Alice has copied nothing, nor issued anything to the public (the manufacturer / initial distributor may well have done), rented/lent nothing, performed nothing, communicated nothing to the public, or made an adaptation.

She has simply sold on a vehicle containing software, just as I require no licence to give you my CD of "OK, Computer". Were I to *copy* my CD, and give you that copied CD, then I likely infringe copyright (16(a), 16(b)), but that's a different use case.

Post by Ian Stirling
the only one with any obligation is the original manufacturer

Not just the manufacturer, as they might be supplying on a wholesale basis, rather than retail, and arguably not then responsible for "issuing copies to the public" — the retailer might be responsible for doing that, and thus requiring a licence — but it does not follow that every action involving GPL'd software is subject to the terms of the GPL.

Post by Ian Stirling
I don't see any basis for this in what I know of copyright law.

Hopefully the above has helped a little, but feel free to shout (on here, or off list) if not.


Best wishes,

Neil

__________

Neil Brown
***@neilzone.co.uk | http://neilzone.co.uk

[Wolfram Sang]

Post by Ian Stirling
Talking for the moment of GPLv2, and noting I'm not a lawyer.

Same here.

Post by Ian Stirling
Alice when she sold the car must have (in order to comply with the
licence) accompany it with a _fresh_
written offer - from her - valid for three years. She cannot simply pass
on the makers written offer, as she
sold the car - the transaction was commercial.

Since we are talking about Germany here, it is worth looking into
"Erschöpfungsgrundsatz" (engl. Exhaustion doctrine) which might apply to
this situation. If this applies, she could sell the car IM(IANAL)O.

Regards,

Wolfram

[Neil Brown]

Post by Wolfram Sang
If this applies, she could sell the car IM(IANAL)O.

Sounds right to me.

Neil

__________

Neil Brown
***@neilzone.co.uk | http://neilzone.co.uk

[Arnt Karlsen]

On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 01:18:06 +0000, Ian wrote in message

Post by Ian Stirling
She has been negligent in her duties under the GPL, and she has in
fact not complied with the license,
and may in principle face a civil action from Bob - who cannot
legally sell the car he's bought.
She could also face possible criminal charges for copyright violation
- this seems vanishingly unlikely.

..I would think that would depend how badly Bob feels about
being screwed, he can easily press charges on Alice, getting
her convicted is quite another challenge, but she could easily
wail loudly enough in the press to get VW owners worrying about
their own second hand value and VW about their first hand value.

..so in Bob's shoes, I would press those charges if I didn't
like VW's response to requests for source, and in VW's shoes
I would point Bob to my (VW's) source site and make him and
Alice and VW share holders etc happy. ;o)

[Bruce Perens]

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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">You'd have to find a certifiably insane
judge to enforce a criminal charge based upon this. Civil law
might potentially work. However, enforcing it upon an individual
is unlikely to be terribly effective. On any business that
regularly sells the vehicles, and thus is likely to re-infringe,
there is a higher probability that you might succeed.<br>
<br>
One of the companies that sells this sort of device to auto
manufacturers was instructed by me to inform all of their vehicle
manufacturer customers that they must respond with source to all
those who make requests of the manufacturer, regardless of the age
of the vehicle, since subsequent sales might happen for decades
and the manufacturer was the only party likely to understand how
to provide source.<br>
<br>
If VW or any other manufacturer is using the three-year limit,
they are likely leaving their own dealers and customers, and
casual sellers, and dealers in parts of junked vehicles in the
lurch legally.<br>
<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thanks<br>
<br>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Bruce<br>
<br>
On 12/15/2013 05:14 AM, Arnt Karlsen wrote:<br> </div> <blockquote cite="mid:***@nb6.lan" type="cite"> <pre wrap="">On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 01:18:06 +0000, Ian wrote in message <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:***@mauve.plus.com">&lt;***@mauve.plus.com&gt;</a>:

</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">She has been negligent in her duties under the GPL, and she has in
fact not complied with the license,
and may in principle face a civil action from Bob - who cannot
legally sell the car he's bought.
She could also face possible criminal charges for copyright violation
- this seems vanishingly unlikely.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
..I would think that would depend how badly Bob feels about
being screwed, he can easily press charges on Alice, getting
her convicted is quite another challenge, but she could easily
wail loudly enough in the press to get VW owners worrying about
their own second hand value and VW about their first hand value.

..so in Bob's shoes, I would press those charges if I didn't
like VW's response to requests for source, and in VW's shoes
I would point Bob to my (VW's) source site and make him and
Alice and VW share holders etc happy. ;o)


</pre>
</blockquote>
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[Felix Domke]

Post by Felix Domke
novero / novero automotive (www.novero.com) builds a range of handsfree
car gateways which are used in many Volkswagen-group cars, for example
VW, Skoda, Seat, Bentley.
[...]
I was unable to find
- a GPL license in the owner's manual (but then again, I bought the car
second hand, so the previous owner may have just lost it)
- a written offer for the source code.
[...]
No software (neither binaries nor sourcecode) is available for download
on the manufacturers website. I tried to contact them with a website
form, but got no response.

As a follow up on this, I eventually got a (nice) response from the
company Novero. They apologized for not responding to the website form
contact (which they said turned out to be broken), and sent me a link to

http://novero.com/opensource

While the website doesn't have links to any source codes (which I guess
is okay because the software is not available for download, but comes
preinstalled), it links to the license text including a written offer
(in german) for a sourcecode CD. Novero also sent me the CD, and from a
first glance, it does contain necessary source codes (I checked Linux
and U-Boot, and they seem to be complete; there's a lot of other
sourcecode on the CD, mostly for userspace tools).

They also pointed out that this license text is supposed to be found in
the car's manuals (in the "conformance declaration" part), which I can
only assume was thrown away by the previous owner, because I don't have
these. I can't verify that this is true or false.