gpl-violations.org is a not-for-profit project founded and led by

Harald Welte Harald Welte, also known as LaForge, is a German programmer. Welte is the founder of the free software project Osmocom and was formerly involved in the netfilter/iptables and Openmoko projects. He is a member of the Chaos Computer Club. Biog ...

in 2004. It works to make sure software licensed under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

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 or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

, and thus putting pressure on the infringers, * Give users who detect or assume

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general us ...

-licensed software is being misused a way to report them to the copyright holders, * Assist copyright holders in any action against

infringing organizations, and to * Distribute information on how a commercial entity using

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 (FSFE) is an ''eingetragener Verein'' (registered voluntary association) under German law. It was founded in 2001 to support all aspects of the free software movement in Europe, with registered chapters in seve ...

Freedom Task Force announced that they were to deepen their previous cooperation. The FSFE Freedom Task Force will be focusing on educating and informing, while gpl-violations.org will focus on enforcing the

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 Netfilter is a framework provided by the Linux kernel that allows various networking-related operations to be implemented in the form of customized handlers. Netfilter offers various functions and operations for packet filtering, network addre ...

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 different tables, which ...

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. is an organization that provides a non-profit home and infrastructure support for free and open source software projects. The organization was established in 2006, and as of June 2022, had over 40 member pro ...

's GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, operates from the

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, gpl-violations.org operates from

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, Welte's home country.

Armijn Hemel Armijn Hemel is a technology consultant and noted watchman of free software. He is part of the gpl-violations.org core team, who have won several court cases against different companies, including D-Link and Skype, for violating the terms of the ...

has been a notable contributor since 2005. The project has been credited with being the first to prove in court that the

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 Free Software Foundation (FSF) grants two annual awards. Since 1998, FSF has granted the award for Advancement of Free Software and since 2005, also the Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit. Presentation ceremonies In 1999 it was pr ...

, 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 Fortinet is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. The company develops and sells cybersecurity solutions, such as physical firewalls, antivirus software, intrusion prevention systems, and endpoint secur ...

had used

code in its products against the terms of the

license A license (or licence) 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 party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

, and used

cryptographic Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or '' -logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

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, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU ope ...

. In response, a

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

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 Corporation is a Taiwanese multinational networking equipment manufacturing corporation headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. It was founded in March 1986 in Taipei as ''Datex Systems Inc.'' History D-Link Corporation changed its name fr ...

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> finally 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