Open-source Vizio lawsuit takes an ugly turn

guest · Dec 6, 2021

December 3, 2021

The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), a non-profit organization that promotes open-source software and defends the free software General Public License (GPL), sued major TV vendor Vizio for abusing the GPL. Specifically, Vizio is using Linux's source code and other open-source software, such as BusyBox, U-Boot, bash, gawk, tar, Glibc, and FFmpegis, in its SmartCast OS TV firmware. These programs are protected under the GPL version 2 (GPLv2) and the Lesser GPL (LGPL).

All the SFC requires is that Vizio makes this code available to the public as per its licenses. Vizio won't hear of it.
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As Bradley M. Kuhn, the SFC's Hacker-in-Residence, and Karen M. Sandler, the SFC's Executive Director, wrote in a recent blog post, Vizio has not released the source code. Nor has the company proposed a Complete Corresponding Source (CCS) candidate for the SFC.
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What did Vizio choose to do? The SFC leaders state: [...]
In other words, "Vizio's filing implies that only copyright holders, and no one else, have a right to ask for source code under the GPL and LGPL."

That's not how open-source software works.
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SFC: First Update on the Vizio lawsuit

Yesterday, we received from Vizio their first official response in our pending litigation against Vizio for their copyleft license violations.

Vizio has gone a disturbing step further and asked the federal United States District Court for the Central District of California to agree to the idea that not only do you as a consumer have no right to ask for source code, but that Californians have no right to even ask their state courts to consider the question!
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Vizio’s strategy is to deny consumers their rights under copyleft licenses, and we intend to fight back.
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reasonablePrivacy · Dec 4, 2021

Judging by the title I was worried that Vizio won something in the court. Fortunately not.

Yet another example that not only chinese companies break copyright law...

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Open-source Vizio lawsuit takes an ugly turn

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Open-source Vizio lawsuit takes an ugly turn

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