I am, like Tav, a little skeptical on how far we want to take it, but I
think that this is a reasonable first step. I vote a. Hope it comes down
to just a communication issue.
Ted
On Mon, 2015-04-20 at 00:41 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> A majority vote of the current board members is required for the
> following Inkscape GPL violation matter.
>
> Proposal:
>
> [ ] a. Approve purchase of Digital Fashion Pro by the
> Conservancy lawyers, up to $250.
> [ ] b. Approve purchase of Digital Fashion Pro by the
> Conservancy lawyers, at any price.
> [ ] c. Do not approve purchase
>
> Background:
>
> Hi guys,
>
> It's been brought to our attention that there is a company selling
> software called Digital Fashion Pro, which in actuality is just Inkscape
> with some templates thrown in, and a price tag in the hundreds or
> thousands of dollars. It appears they neither mention that the software
> is open source under the GPL, nor make offers of source code for
> download, which is a GPL violation.
>
> In order to establish legal proof of the violation, Conservancy needs to
> verify the lack of source offer, and to do that they need to examine a
> purchased copy of the software. Their policy is to ask the infringed
> project (i.e. us) to foot the bill for that copy. If it is found that
> the company is in fact in violation, they will be asked (or legally
> required) to repay this amount. They may also be required to pay legal
> fees, and to come into compliance with the GPL.
>
> The price of the software has varied during the time of observation.
> Currently it is "on sale" for $200, but I've seen it offered at $500
> and even $1500.
>
> Please see below for the Conservancy's estimation of the likely
> best/typical/worst case resolution of this.
>
> Bryce
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> On 04/08/2015 04:33 AM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > Before we get too far into this, can I ask a basic question?
> > What is the best/likely/worst outcomes we should expect from engaging
> > with them on this?
>
> Probably the best outcome would be for us to find that they already
> include a fully-compliant source release of Digital Fashion Pro along
> with the product itself, and that they are willing to update their
> advertising to make it clear that Digital Fashion Pro is a modified
> version of Inkscape (assuming that lack of clarity is one of the current
> issues). Even better would be for them to release Digital Fashion Pro
> and its source code at no charge, but I don't think this is likely given
> that it seems to be a main revenue stream so I wouldn't consider it a
> possible outcome really. Another good outcome would be that, though
> they didn't ship source initially, they give us a source candidate when
> we first contact them and it happens to be compliant, so we charge them
> for our time and they pay us. They might even agree to allow us to
> write a Conservancy blog post praising them for coming into compliance,
> though usually companies don't since they don't like people knowing that
> they weren't in compliance to begin with. But if we did get that,
> perhaps by giving them a discount on what we charge them for our time
> checking their source, it would be very helpful in deterring future
> violators and encouraging compliance generally, as people would see
> Conservancy is reasonable and willing to work with violators to amicably
> resolve issues without public shaming.
>
> The worst outcome would be that we spend a lot of resources on this
> issue and it drags on for a year or more and they're unwilling to budge
> so we have to file a lawsuit and we eventually have to agree to a
> settlement that offers only the minimum compliance required by the GPL.
> That minimum compliance might not resolve the trademark issues, which
> we could try to resolve some other way (through a separate action,
> possibly also including a lawsuit). "Minimum compliance" would in
> practice likely involve them providing source only to people who have
> purchased Digital Fashion Pro and who have asked for source. Also, we
> may have to keep chasing them as they may then release new versions that
> are not compliant. Note that we very rarely file lawsuits to achieve
> compliance - this is a worst-case scenario.
>
> A likely outcome is that we buy Digital Fashion Pro, find that it
> doesn't include source code or an offer for source code, and then when
> we ask for source, they initially claim they don't need to send us any,
> but eventually they capitulate and send us some source code they think
> corresponds to the Digital Fashion Pro binaries they ship. We will
> probably need to go back and forth with them a few times when it doesn't
> build correctly, but we will likely reach a point where they have
> provided all the source to us. We'll ask them to include an offer for
> source with their product, which they'll do, and provide source on a CD
> or similar to anyone who's bought the product and asks for source. This
> who process would probably take 6 months to a year. I hesitate somewhat
> to say this is a "likely outcome", but given the information I have so
> far (see below), it's difficult to provide a more accurate assessment.
>
> Another possible outcome is that they agree to stop distributing Digital
> Fashion Pro and any other software that includes or is based on
> Inkscape. This would be compliant, but is also an unlikely outcome
> since Inkscape-derived copies of software seem to be one of their main
> revenue streams.
>
> > I ask because I know it'll be a hassle to pursue this, and want to make
> > sure the benefits are going worth the effort. I'll need to get
> > Inkscape's board to agree to pay for the validation copy of the
> > software, so I'd like to communicate to them what outcome we're aiming
> > to see.
>
> Hopefully the above will help with that, though I would emphasize that
> it's very difficult to tell where any violation matter might go,
> especially in a situation like this where it is extremely unclear how
> close to compliance they might be (without buying the software). One
> option for getting a better idea without buying Digital Fashion Pro
> would be to contact a person who has received Digital Fashion Pro and
> ask them whether the distribution they received was compliant - we could
> contact such a person for you if you know of one. In any case, we will
> probably have a much better idea of the willingness of Digital Fashion
> Pro's distributors to work with us after we have downloaded Digital
> Fashion Pro and made initial contact with them (assuming it is
> violating, which seems likely). We could most likely make this initial
> contact within a month or two of us buying Digital Fashion Pro.
>
>
> Let me know if you have any questions about any of this. Thanks!
>
> Denver
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Denver Gingerich <[email protected]>
> -----
>
> Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 18:15:31 -0400
> >From: Denver Gingerich <[email protected]>
> To: Bryce Harrington <[email protected]>
> Cc: Karen Sandler <[email protected]>, Tony Sebro
> <[email protected]>
> Subject: Re: GPL violation on Inkscape
>
> On 03/31/2015 02:16 PM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> > Hi Karen,
> >
> > Guessing this got lost amongst all the GPL violation mail... I know
> > you're really busy. Real quick though, is this something SFC might be
> > able to help us with, or should we pursue it ourselves?
>
> Yes, Conservancy can help with this, though we will likely need more
> facts in order to take action. I've described what we need below.
>
> Apologies for the delay in responding; compliance matters like this
> are generally handled by me, but I only work at Conservancy one day a
> week.
>
> > On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 05:20:09PM -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> >> Hi Karen,
> >>
> >> See email from Maren below. This company is selling a product called
> >> Digital Fashion Pro for $1446 (academic price $499), which consists of
> >> Inkscape bundled with some training materials and templates. You can
> >> see the software is just rebranded Inkscape via their main video:
> >>
> >> http://startingaclothingline.com/html/pu-demo.html
>
> There are likely both copyright and trademark issues here. I mainly
> work with the copyright issues myself; I've CCed Tony, Conservancy's
> general counsel, who has more knowledge of trademark issues.
>
> To continue with investigating the possible copyright infringement
> case (that is, the potential GPL violation), we normally prefer to
> have some "hard evidence". To obtain this evidence, we'd like to
> purchase Digital Fashion Pro to confirm that it does indeed violate
> the GPL (likely by failing to provide source code or an offer for
> source).
>
> I see at http://shop.startingaclothingline.com/ that "1b- Digital
> Fashion Pro V8 Basic" is currently available for $199. That seems to
> be the least expensive version that's likely to include Inkscape.
> With enforcement work like this, we typically ask the member project
> to pay any direct costs, such as the $199 cost of buying Digital
> Fashion Pro in this case, but we do not charge the member project for
> any Conservancy staff time. Of course, we will ask the violator to
> pay our costs, including the cost of buying the product (ie. Digital
> Fashion Pro), which would then revert to the member project. However,
> be aware that we often aren't able to collect from violators, for a
> variety of reasons.
>
> For more details about Conservancy's usual procedures for enforcing
> the GPL, feel free to read
> https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-enforcement/ .
>
> >> Also, on their troubleshooting page it explicitly references "Free IS.48
> >> Vector Application", which they copy protect with a serial number to
> >> unlock it during install.
> >>
> >> http://startingaclothingline.com/html/troubleshooting.html
>
> It's hard to say from that page exactly how the serial number is being
> used and whether their method would violate the GPL. Since we should
> obtain the software anyway in order to check more general compliance,
> we can assess the serial number issue once we receive the software.
>
> >> ----- Forwarded message from [email protected] -----
> >>
> >> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:56:58 +0100
> >> From: [email protected]
> >> To: Bryce Harrington <[email protected]>
> >> Subject: Strange Inkscape redistribution - could this be a GPL violation?
> [...]
> >> You can follow up on this here:
> >> https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/263166
> >>
> >> Also, it is not clear if they offer a modified version or the original
> >> software. At least they seem to call it differently.
>
> This is another fact pattern that we'd like to confirm, which again
> would be most easily done after we receive the software.
>
>
> Please let me know if you have any questions at all about any of this.
> Thanks!
>
> Denver Gingerich
> FLOSS License Compliance Engineer
> Software Freedom Conservancy
>
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
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