ROFL http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/2008/mar/26/moglen-ravicher/
"An initial client of Moglen Ravicher LLC is OpenNMS, an open source enterprise grade network management platform. OpenNMS has retained the firm for representation regarding violations of the GNU General Public License (GPL)." http://blogs.opennms.org/?p=181 "OpenNMS, Eben Moglen and Cittio OpenNMS has retained Moglen Ravicher, LLC (a for-profit law firm organized by the Software Freedom Law Center and run to support their non-profit operations) to represent us with respect to issues relating to GPL license violations of OpenNMS code by the Cittio Watchtower product. A couple of weeks ago I posted on Ask Slashdot my concerns about possible GPL violations. While most of the comments were not very helpful (grin), it did cause a number of people to contact me with more information about Cittios use of OpenNMS code in their product, and it was enough information for me to go to Eben Moglen with my concerns. Since were a for profit enterprise, we arent eligible for SFLCs pro bono services. Thus, we retained Moglen Ravicher to represent us. With their involvement, I am certain that the best interests of the OpenNMS community will be represented and I look forward to a resolution of these licensing issues. Since this matter does involve lawyers, I will be limited as to what I can share about this process from here on out, which goes against both my open nature and my big mouth. This is a very unpleasant process for us but we feel it is necessary to be true to ideals that drive our project. Thanks for your patience and understanding." More context: http://blogs.opennms.org/?p=171 "I recently got an e-mail from a company that was looking at both OpenNMS and Cittio. It appears that Cittio is not telling potential clients that any open source software is being used, at least not at the level of detail required by the GPL. From the client Oh, Watchtower told us that they used some open source apps but did not mention as to what they used. When I brought up the fact that parts of Watchtower are based on OpenNMS, the client replied I could not find one ounce of mention on their website to OpenNMS or any other Open Source code that is running on this product. That really irritates me. I should also mention that this client is in final negotiations with Cittio (they dropped their initial price considerably) so were not talking a first contact cold call here - they are ready to close this deal without a single detail concerning their use of open source. So I have moved Cittio into the untrustworthy column. At the moment I really cant do anything about this. We are doing well enough that I could get lawyers involved, but Id rather spend any extra money we have on making OpenNMS better than pursuing a company like Cittio. I am hoping that word of mouth is enough to get people asking the right questions when dealing with them." wishdev commented: "March 4th, 2008 at 1:01 am Did you really look that hard on their site or elsewhere to see that they fully disclose what open source products they use? A 10 second google search of Cittio open source pops up a full page on their site listing each open source package they use in a very simple list. It also doesnt seem that hard to find just looking at their site Technology/Open Source Components is pretty easy to find. Not saying they are perfect - but they seem pretty far from hiding the fact that OpenNMS is in their product offering" CITTIO also responded: "March 6th, 2008 at 12:51 pm Apologies for not responding to this earlier, my second son just entered this world and my family and I have been a little busy. As you know, CITTIO was founded because of the shortcomings of legacy NMS solutions that were too manual, too time-consuming and ultimately unable to deliver needed visibility across heterogeneous environments. We chose to build a software company that leveraged the power and flexibility of open-source technology. Currently, CITTIOs software makes use of more than 35 open source components. Were deeply dedicated to the ongoing success and growth of open source as well as maintaining strong relationships with the open source community for many years to come. To clear the air: 1) Our focus has been and remains to provide the best monitoring solution possible for our customers and future customers. 2) We fully disclose information on the open source components we use on our website at: http://www.cittio.com/technology/open-source.html . 3) As our website clearly states, we currently use OpenNMS version 1.0.2 and believe we had abided by the GPL. 4) Our contracts make it clear open source code is delivered with our offerings and customers have the right to gain access, copy, modify and redistribute this free software. 5) Our customers have access to the open source code used in our offerings. 6) The CITTIO developer referenced is a dedicated, hard-working contractor who also works from home frequently, hence the CITTIO and non-CITTIO DNSs. The above is clearly not enough so let me explain how we use OpenNMS in our product and the changes we will make going forward: We use the 1.0.2 OpenNMS code line which is fairly old but works well for what we use it for. We leverage the backend daemons such as discovery and data collection. Collected data is put into the PostgreSQL database, RRD files, and into Java messages where we then access it from standard SQL or Java messaging and display the results in our GUI. By accessing the OpenNMS code via standard SQL and Java messages, we believe we created a clear separation between the GPL code and our code. This being said, we have incorporated bug fixes, performance enhancements and some features from more recent OpenNMS builds into the code. We also have made modifications in order to make the communication points with OpenNMS easier by adding some more messages or data into the database. In addition we have added enhancements such as performance tuning and dynamic graphing of hard drive mount points. We have always made an offer to all customers in our standard software license agreement that this code is freely available to them. It is clear making code available to our customers is not enough. We will therefore also make this code freely available to everyone on sourceforge as part of our 3.1 release in the next few weeks. Given your suggestions, we will look into making a third party audit of our software and sharing the results. I hope this provides more clarity and resolves any outstanding issues. Jamie Lerner President & CEO CITTIO, Inc." regards, alexander. -- "03/17/2008 10 NOTICE OF VOLUNTARY DISMISSAL: Pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1) of the F.R.C.P., plaintiffs Erik Andersen and Rob Landley hereby dismiss this action against defendant Verizon Communications Inc. WITH PREJUDICE" -- CIVIL DOCKET FOR CASE #: 1:07-cv-11070-LTS _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
