Qualcomm "All Rights Reserved" in Linux staging

Qualcomm "All Rights Reserved" in Linux staging

[Mathieu Desnoyers]

Hi Greg,

Reading this story about Qualcomm lawyers shooting
DMCA takedown requests lightly against github projects:

http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/07/04/1455200/qualcomm-takes-down-100-github-repositories-with-dmca-notice
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTczNDU
https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-07-02-Qualcomm.md

It appears to me that the mere presence of those lines
in Linux staging:

grep -r "Qualcomm" . |grep -i "rights"
./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_usb.c: * CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_download.c:* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_hw.c:/* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.

might be contradicting the Dual MPL/GPL license
expressed by MODULE_LICENSE() for those files.
Perhaps we should ask some clarification on
licensing of those files to Qualcomm ?

Thanks,

Mathieu

-- 
Mathieu Desnoyers
EfficiOS Inc.
http://www.efficios.com

Re: Qualcomm "All Rights Reserved" in Linux staging

[Paul Bolle]

On Fri, 2014-07-04 at 21:20 +0000, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> grep -r "Qualcomm" . |grep -i "rights"
> ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_usb.c: * CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_download.c:* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_hw.c:/* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.

That's actually a common pattern:
    $ git grep -i "Copyright.*All Rights Reserved" v3.16-rc3 | wc -l
    5203


Paul Bolle

Re: Qualcomm "All Rights Reserved" in Linux staging

[gregkh]

On Sat, Jul 05, 2014 at 12:05:48AM +0200, Paul Bolle wrote:
> On Fri, 2014-07-04 at 21:20 +0000, Mathieu Desnoyers wrote:
> > grep -r "Qualcomm" . |grep -i "rights"
> > ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_usb.c: * CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> > ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_download.c:* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> > ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_hw.c:/* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> 
> That's actually a common pattern:
>     $ git grep -i "Copyright.*All Rights Reserved" v3.16-rc3 | wc -l
>     5203

Yeah, I used to be "worried" about that as well, turns out it means
nothing :)

It's the license of the code that is the issue, not the copyright line,
which all lawyers tell me now shouldn't even be in a file, as it, again,
means nothing.

thanks,

greg k-h

Re: Qualcomm "All Rights Reserved" in Linux staging

[One Thousand Gnomes]

On Fri, 4 Jul 2014 21:20:28 +0000 (UTC)
Mathieu Desnoyers <mathieu.desnoyers@efficios.com> wrote:

> Hi Greg,
> 
> Reading this story about Qualcomm lawyers shooting
> DMCA takedown requests lightly against github projects:
> 
> http://linux.slashdot.org/story/14/07/04/1455200/qualcomm-takes-down-100-github-repositories-with-dmca-notice
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTczNDU
> https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-07-02-Qualcomm.md
> 
> It appears to me that the mere presence of those lines
> in Linux staging:
> 
> grep -r "Qualcomm" . |grep -i "rights"
> ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_usb.c: * CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_download.c:* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> ./drivers/staging/ft1000/ft1000-usb/ft1000_hw.c:/* CopyRight (C) 2007 Qualcomm Inc. All Rights Reserved.
> 
> might be contradicting the Dual MPL/GPL license
> expressed by MODULE_LICENSE() for those files.
> Perhaps we should ask some clarification on
> licensing of those files to Qualcomm ?

Trying to stop idiot DMCA takedowns is pointless. If some random robot
issues a takedown the kernel.org folks will get another pointless DMCA
notice and the Linux Foundation will have to go and kick backsides.

Qualcomm screwed up massively - the problem is that fake DMCA takedowns
are never punished. Qualcomm shouldn't just be apologising, they should
facing an automatic financial penalty for each bogus filing and whoever
signed the notices should be facing their professional body.

Alan