Re: [Qemu-discuss] Help needed - LGPL Violation and Legal Threats

[Chloride Cull]

address@hidden ~/Downloads]$ strings nucore | grep qemu
/usr/local/share/qemu
/tmp/qemu-smb.%d
/etc/qemu-ifup
[qemu]
show the version of qemu
show kqemu information
kqemu support:
(qemu)
activate logging of the specified items to '/tmp/qemu.log'
qemu: Unsupported NIC: %s
qemu: unsupported keyboard cmd=0x%02x
  qemu ...
qemu.wav
/tmp/qemu.log
qemu: fatal:
/dev/kqemu
kqemu_flush_page: addr=%08x
kqemu_flush:
kqemu: cpu_exec: enter
kqemu: interrupt v=%02x:
Version mismatch between kqemu module and qemu (%08x %08x) - disabling
kqemu use
kqemu_set_notdirty: addr=%08lx
kqemu: exception v=%02x e=%04x:
kqemu: kqemu_cpu_exec: ret=0x%x

It most certainly looks like qemu from running strings on it.
AFAIK it should be enough evidence, but IANAL. Can't really prove it is
a derivative that easily without access to both sources ;)

On 11/02/2014 03:26 AM, Tom Cain wrote:
> G'day QEMU wizards,
> I've recently been made aware of an organization that seems to be pretty 
> actively sending out nastygrams to people who redistribute their software 
> which is a QEMU derivative.
> It was my understanding that current versions of QEMU full system emulation 
> are GPL, and older versions (0.8.1) were LGPL.
> The executables that this company distributes are not distributed with the 
> source, and the company has refused to release the source code upon request, 
> and has threatened legal action to all of those who host these files on their 
> websites.
> My binary analysis shows that this is QEMU-0.8.1, can anyone confirm?
> http://bigguyspinball.com/nucoresupport.shtml
> 
> If so, it appears that this website is committing copyright infringement by 
> violating the terms of the LGPL.
> 
> Any insight would be appreciated! I've communicated with the FSF and the 
> Software Freedom Conservancy, and they agree that hypothetically it is a 
> violation. I just need someone to confirm that the contents of that linux 
> binary are QEMU. From the looks of it, if this company is filing lawsuits, it 
> puts a MAJOR damper on the open source community, so any help is appreciated.
> Thank you all!
> Tom
>