Re: [Ekiga-devel-list] [info] Re: Ekiga INVITE requests are rejected by OpenIMS P-CSCF

[Dragos Vingarzan <vingarzan fokus fraunhofer de>]

Dear Thomas,

Both Ekiga and the Open IMS Core implement more or less the SIP RFC 3261
as well as other specifications. I think that you should be aware that
any such standards might cover IPRs. e.g. RFC3261:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=statement+about+IPR+claimed+in+RFC+3261

This are pretty standard claims and in one of them for example, company
X stated:

"To the extent that the technology discussed in the above referenced
IETF document(s) becomes an IETF Standard, and to the extent claims of
X's patents are required to implement the IETF Standard, X agrees that,
upon written request, X will offer, on a nondiscriminatory basis,
non-exclusive licenses on fair and reasonable terms under such patent
claims to implement that IETF Standard. X's willingness to grant such
licenses is conditioned upon the prospective licensee granting a
reciprocal license to X under any patents that the prospective licensee
has to any technology required to implement that IETF Standard."

This statements are made while the specifications are in a draft format,
so you can not talk about prior art. The words are "fair and reasonable"
and not "free for commercial usage". So from how I see it, both of our
project could be infringing patents.

Then there are more standards that we implement coming from 3GPP, ETSI,
TISPAN, CableLabs, ITU, etc.

We chose to warn the users about it, you didn't and now you accuse us of
being untrue and of hiding our real intentions?...

You stated 2 things:
> 1. the disclaimer is unneccesary cause already covered by GPL's
warranty and liability exclude for products without license fee.

Then please feel free to ignore it. In any case, it was just a warning.
Does the "Smoking kills" sign on any cigarette package mean that you are
forbidden to smoke? Then if not, is it unnecessary?

> 2. the disclaimer contains Your expressed forbid of commercial and
production use colliding GPL's expressed intend and ruling for/of
commercial use.
>for me, 2. remains applicable.

Of course, you can believe whatever you want. We think that the text is
clear enough. Contrary to your claims, there are no words like
"restrict" or "forbid" in there.

This whole discussion doesn't make any sense especially as it started
from a some bug-reports from a user. I think that it would be more
important to actually investigate those issues and try to fix them then
to have pointless discussions about the patenting system.

Regards,
-Dragos

thomas schorpp wrote:
> Respected Sirs and Madames of Fraunhofer FOKUS,
> Dear Dragos, Dear Peter,
>
> Dragos Vingarzan wrote:
>> Dear Thomas,
>>
>>
>> 1. You are right. However, I am sure that anyone can google "GPL" and
>> find it. In any case, I have added a link now.
>>
>> About confusing users, I doubt it. The statement is:
>>
>> "Open IMS Core is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
>> it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the
>> Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your
>> option) any later version."
>>
>> Which part is confusing?
>
> My kind thanks for Your clarification, please let me clarify myself:
>
> Well, it is best marketing practice to hide possible collisions with a
> company's own intend on a product. I can see You using it.
>
>>
>> I do not agree with you that we should publish the full text of the
>> license on the homepage. And the full text of the license can be found
>> in the source code, where it should be. I looked on the Ekiga's homepage
>> and you don't have it either.
>
> Ekiga Project doesn't use any possible GPL colliding terms or so
> expressed intends,
> so theres no need to have it.
>
>>
>> 2.
>> a) You say "restriction" and I wonder if you actually read the
>> paragraph. That paragraph is completely different from the license as it
>> can be easily observed and it states:
>>
>> "Mandatory disclaimer, before any usage
>>
>> It has to be noted that this Open Source IMS Core System is not intended
>> to become or act as a product in a commercial context! Its sole purpose
>> is to provide an IMS core reference implementation for IMS technology
>> testing and IMS application prototyping for research purposes, typically
>> performed in IMS test-beds.
>>
>> Users of the Open Source IMS Core System have to be aware that IMS
>> technology may be subject of patents and license terms, as being
>> specified within the various IMS-related IETF, ITU-T, ETSI, and 3GPP
>> standards. Thus all Open IMS Core users have to take notice of this fact
>> and have to agree to check out carefully before installing, using and
>> extending the Open Source IMS Core System, if related patents and
>> licenses may become applicable to the intended usage context."
>>
>> We never use words like "restricted", but we just ask the users to take
>> "note" that the project is "intended" for non-commercial,
>> non-carrier-grade usage and should be only used in  a test-bed
>> environment due to obvious security limitation because of the
>> experimental nature of the project.
>
> experimental lifecycle state is no point for such restrictions in OSS
> and proprietary SW-industry, it has never been, cause the SW product
> can only improve by use in full lifecycle which includes early release
> to customers to test field maturity, etc, so the product improvement
> cycle can begin.
>
> there's no expressed concretization of Your disclaimer needed for me.
> however, there're two possible concretizations:
>
> 1. the disclaimer is unneccesary cause already covered by GPL's
> warranty and liability exclude for products without license fee.
> 2. the disclaimer contains Your expressed forbid of commercial and
> production use colliding GPL's expressed intend and ruling for/of
> commercial use.
>
> for me, 2. remains applicable.
>
>>
>> Then the 2nd part indicates that the implemented technologies COULD be
>> patented! This has nothing to do with the GPL license! This is an extra
>> warning that we chose to give to our users. I am sure that the GPL does
>> not restrict this. If you disagree, please indicate how we are
>> infringing on the GPL.
>>
>> The fact is that patents could be applied on everything and the GPL
>> status of a certain implementation of that patented technologies does
>> not exempt you from having to pay patent royalties for example. You
>> could consult for example the RFC3669 on IPR claims on RFC standards for
>> example.
>
> sorry, as copyright holders, You and Your partners may surely preserve
> such rights, but not if You already released technologies and/or
> implementations publicly under GPL, besides not, cause You can't
> patent it later because it is state-of-the-art already by
> international patent laws.
> such preservation collides the GPL cause patents inhibit major GPL terms.
> possibly You could avoid this by charging license/patent-fees *after
> patenting* but then GPL requires You to provide warranty. what
> "warranty", that is lawyers workout ;)
>
>>
>> b) Please explain how we confuse "free" with "non-commercial".
>
> You expressed (advised, whatever) You want non-commercial use but GPL
> allows commercial use. even if most GPL'd products are license free
> there can be no such restriction and in no case inheritable.
>
>>
>> 3. Again, I do not understand what you imply by "restriction for
>> "software patents"". There is no restriction there, other than the GPLv2
>> one.
>
> see above.
>
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> Dragos Vingarzan
>> Peter Weik
>
> Anyway, it is not to me to rule You about Your business.
> This has been just analysis and critics in the hope it will be helpful
> and reflect my personal opinions, You're free to ask FSF for more
> comprehensive advise.
> I'm surely not the first to question, too, many businesses fear so
> called "GPL Issues".
>
> Best Regards,
> Thomas Schorpp
>
>>
>>
>> thomas schorpp wrote:
>>> + GPL violations due to illegal license constructs and non-GPL
>>> restrictions for "OpenIMS" from Fraunhofer Fokus Institute:
>>>
>>> http://www.openimscore.org/#license
>>>
>>> 1. no full text copy of GPL V2 on website, possibly intended to
>>> confuse users for the further conditions:
>>> 2. restriction for non-commercial use - illegal under GPL V2, license
>>> author confuses "free" with "non-commercial"
>>> 3. restriction for "software patents" - illegal under GPL V2
>>>
>>> guys, dont touch this until Fraunhofer Fokus gets this right.
>>>
>>> y
>>> tom
>>
>
>


-- 
-----------------------------------------
Dipl. Eng. Dragos Vingarzan
Fraunhofer FOKUS/NGNI
Kaiserin-Augusta-Allee 31
10589 Berlin,Germany
Phone +49 (0)30 - 3463 - 7385
Mobile +49 (0)163 - 159 - 5221
Web www.fokus.fraunhofer.de www.openimscore.org
We could change the world if God would give us the source code...
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