gpl-violations.org is a not-for-profit project founded and led by Harald Welte in 2004. It works to make sure software licensed under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

(GPL) is not used in ways prohibited by the license.

Goals

The goals of the project are, according to its website, to: * Raise public awareness of the infringing use of

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

, and thus putting pressure on the infringers, * Give users who detect or assume GPL-licensed software is being misused a way to report them to the copyright holders, * Assist copyright holders in any action against GPL infringing organizations, and to * Distribute information on how a commercial entity using GPL licensed software in their products can comply with the license. In May 2008, gpl-violations.org and the

Free Software Foundation Europe The Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. (FSFE) is an organization that supports free software and all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in several European countries. It is a registered voluntary associat ...

Freedom Task Force announced that they were to deepen their previous cooperation. The task force would focus on educating and informing, while gpl-violations.org would focus on enforcing the GPL.

History

The gpl-violations.org project was founded in 2004 by Harald Welte. Welte was a kernel developer who had been actively enforcing the GPL license on his netfilter/

iptables iptables is a user-space utility program that allows a system administrator to configure the IP packet filter rules of the Linux kernel firewall, implemented as different Netfilter modules. The filters are organized in a set of tables, whi ...

code since late 2003. Since then, other developers have given gpl-violations.org legal right to represent them. While the

Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (also known as "Conservancy") is an organization that provides a Nonprofit organization, non-profit home, infrastructure support, and legal support for free software, free and open source software projects. The ...

's GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, operates from the United States, gpl-violations.org operates from Germany, Welte's home country. The project has been credited with being the first to prove in court that the GPL is valid and that it will stand up in court. Project creator Harald Welte received the 2007 FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software, partly because of his work on gpl-violations.org. From January till October, 2015, the website was offline and no longer resolved. It planned to continue its activities in 2016. Its activities resumed by November 2015.

Notable victories

Fortinet

In 2005, the gpl-violations.org project uncovered evidence that Fortinet had used GPL code in its products against the terms of the

license A license (American English) or licence (Commonwealth English) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another part ...

, and used

cryptographic Cryptography, or cryptology (from "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adversarial behavior. More gen ...

tools to conceal the violation. The violation was alleged to have occurred in the ''FortiOS'' system, which the gpl-violations.org project said contained elements of the

Linux kernel The Linux kernel is a Free and open-source software, free and open source Unix-like kernel (operating system), kernel that is used in many computer systems worldwide. The kernel was created by Linus Torvalds in 1991 and was soon adopted as the k ...

. In response, a

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

court granted a temporary injunction against the company, preventing it from selling products until they were in compliance with the necessary license terms; Fortinet was forced to make their FortiOS available free in compliance with GPL licensing.

D-Link

On September 6, 2006, the gpl-violations.org project prevailed in court litigation against

D-Link D-Link Systems, Inc. (formerly Datex Systems, Inc.) is a Taiwanese multinational manufacturer of networking hardware and telecoms equipments. It was founded in 1986 and headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. History Datex Systems was founded i ...

Germany GmbH regarding D-Link's alleged inappropriate and copyright infringing use of parts of the Linux kernel. The judgementUnofficial English translation of the D-Link court judgement
/ref> provided the on-record, legal precedent that the GPL is valid and that it will stand up in German courts.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gpl-Violations.Org GNU Project Free software websites Free and open-source software organizations Intellectual property activism Computer law Copyright infringement of software Organizations established in 2004 2004 establishments in Germany ru:Gpl-violations.org