Louis Rossmann could sue John Deere for GPL violation [video]
From the referenced video "CT Wilson: the delegate blocking Right to Repair in Maryland" [0]: "You don't need the source code, to change your battery, ...".
I'm somehow confronted with this with my VW car. The battery is close to dead, and I want to replace it. I can do that. Yet the car needs to be informed that it now has a new battery in order optimize its power management (it's not an electric car, it's basically the most simple modern VW).
I need to go to the dealer and have them change the battery for me and reset the battery status, which is maybe 100€ in addition to the battery cost.
If the source code would be publicly accessible, probably a cheap OBD-2 adapter would be capable of doing this.
Reminder that John Deere is going around the country at the state level sabotaging right to repair bills while this is happening. This company is openly hostile to the public and needs to be reined* in.
It would be useful to have a court case be litigated all the way to the Supreme Court to establish the enforceability of the GPL whereby the defendant is forced to share code against their will.
A video? This is the better link https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/17/john_deere_sfc_gpl/
What I don't understand is why John Deer with their incredibly expensive tractors doesn't just use Windows CE or any other proprietary OS. They can afford it and it's not like Linux development is any easier than Windows development.
Offtopic: is it true what he says about Apple pairing their sleep sensor chip to their security signatures? That would be such a scumbag move.
Software licenses and closed-source software are at odds here. In the FOSS community it is easy to tell who borrowed your code and violated your license. Closed source software can choose to rip off everyone and it gets very difficult to enforce your open source license. Almost a rules for thee but not for me scenario that puts open source at a disadvantage.
I don't understand what's going on here.
The SFC blog post doesn't mention any specific program but, in the article in The Register, the SFC director is quoted talking about Linux in particular. But Linux is just GPLv2, so doesn't have an anti-Tivoisation [1] clause. In other words, you're free to put it on hardware in binary form (even after modifying it) and sell that hardware, and you're under no obligation to give away the source code to it or any of your own software.
On the other hand, I'm sure the director of the SFC knows a lot more about this situation than I do, so I'm sure that there's something I'm missing.
He can't since he is not the copyright owner of the GPL software. Additionally, he misunderstands what a lawsuit over GPL infringement does. You can not be forced to give out code.
I don't even understand what they are expecting to get. I don't see how being sent a link to https://www.gnu.org/software/bash or similar for the various software that may be installed suddenly makes your life better even though you can just google for it.
> "When Deere does reply (we have heard from others that their legitimate requests for source code have been met with silence), they have always failed to include the 'scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable,' per GPLv2," Gingerich told The Register.
source code modifications are required to be provided, build tools which are not modified from GPL source are not. is this really what someone is going to sue over?
He has standing to bring a suit?
This is beyond crazy. I can't image even trying to be a farmer without spending a good portion of my time repairing my tools, fences, etc.
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But why didn't he sue Xiaomi? Why? Life is pain and unanswered questions...