Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Open Source Group Uncovers GPL Violations

April 14, 2005 | Comments: (0)

Open Source Group Uncovers GPL Violations

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The gpl-violations.org project on Thursday said it has uncovered violations by Fortinet UK Ltd., a subsidiary of Fortinet, Inc., of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The organization claims that Fortinet used GPL software in a number of products and then used cryptographic techniques to conceal the use of that software.

The organization also reported that the Munich district court has issued a preliminary injunction against Fortinet Ltd. prohibiting them from further distributing their products until they comply with the GNU GPL terms and conditions.

"This violation by Fortinet is especially egregious since the vendor not only violated the GPL, but actively tried to hide that violation," said Harald Welte, Linux Kernel developer and founder of the gpl-violations.org project in a prepared statement. "We are not in any way opposed to the commercial use of Free and Open Source Software and there is no legal risk of using GPL licensed software in commercial products. But vendors have to comply with the license terms, just like they would have to with any other software license agreement."

Fortinet has a number of Firewall and Antivirus Products, namely the FortiGate and FortiWiFi product series, on which Fortinet runs the "FortiOS" operating system. But the gpl-violations.org project said it has uncovered "FortiOS" to be using the Linux operating system kernel and "numerous other free software products" that are licensed exclusively under the GNU GPL.

More information about the project's and goals can be seen at http://gpl-violations.org.

Posted by Ed Scannell on April 14, 2005 12:05 PM

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