BSD family of licenses and consumer rights

Krush206 said:
The Promotor said I should bring the case to the court and PROCON.
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Please, please explain the words you are using. Few people outside Brasil know what organization PROCON is. It is the consumer protection agency. And people outside Brasil think they know what a "promotor" is: either someone who does advertising, or a person who puts on music concerts. But you are using the word (without translation) in a completely different meaning: In Portuguese, the word "Promotor" means a prosecutor (synonyms in English include district attorney, attorney general, or crown prosecutor).

Not only are you quite confused about the law yourself, you are actively making others confused by failing to explain and translate some Brasilian / Portuguese concepts and words.
 
The fun thing about products like PlayStation is that Sony does not sell PlayStation under the BSD license. Sony sells an entirely new product composed, in part, of BSD-licensed components under their own terms. If Sony were to sell a compiled binary of the FreeBSD kernel inside their box, Sony would be obligated to show a FreeBSD copyright notice+conditions (see https://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-license/) and nothing more as per the BSD license that the kernel is governed by. As a buyer of the PlayStation product I have zero standing to demand source code from Sony because PlayStation is not sold to me under the terms of the BSD-license to even begin with. Sony is redistributing a derivative work and/or a compilation, which they are perfectly allowed to do by virtue of the BSD-license, as long as they adhere to the conditions of said license. So without any obligation to publish sources either inherited or implied. The license itself is quite clear in its distinction between source and binary distribution, where the binary distribution explicitly forces you to display the conditions and copyright notices in documentation and/or other accompanying materials. Had the intent of the license been some form of copyleft, the binary distribution clause would have obligated the availability of sources upon request at nominal cost or some such. That's not the case, though. So good luck in court.
 
I don't think sure this is worth another thread on copyright but I signed a AT&T source code license for SysV. Anyone know where that stands currently with providing patches for the BSDs? When I say I signed, it wasn't an NDA or company agreement, it was my name on the bottom of the thick contract also signed by their extensive legal team. Long ago I received the advice to not send patches to GNU things that were related to anything that was covered by the old phone company. I've had the discussion about contributions to Linux as well which resulted in similar advice.

Anyone know what is going on in 2026 for a contract signed nearly 4 decades ago?
 
bvdw78 said:
The license itself is quite clear in its distinction between source and binary distribution, where the binary distribution explicitly forces you to display the conditions and copyright notices in documentation and/or other accompanying materials.
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How the license should be notified is not forced to specific form.
One or more of any item below would be OK.
  • Print to somewhere on the package.
  • Print on (printed, PDF, HTML, web version at their site) user's manual.
  • Print on kinda "OSS used" seet.
  • Display at startup (even if at 1 vsync).
  • Display at some layer in the operation menus (even if it's at deeeeep layer).
But the clearer, the better.
 
Krush206 said:
I enrolled in a consumer law course recently, and learned a lot there.
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Now enroll in a copyright law course. Do you think judges in Brazil have studied only "consumer law course" and it is all necessary for their work? Or you think that consumer law is at highest level of all laws?
 
Krush206 said:
Do you also think the disclaimer will work in your favor? Under consumer law, disclaimers won't work in your favor.
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If Sony reuse BSD code in the PlayStation, it is responsible of all aspects of the consumer laws of the nation where it commercializes/sells its product. The BSD disclaimer (i.e. "THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED `'AS IS″ AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES...") is needed for protecting the authors of BSD source code. They are giving away source code, without promising it is bug-free.

Judges, lawyers, and companies may interpret the same clause ("use in source form") differently.
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In case of ambiguity, the BSD license must be interpreted using its "commonly accepted" meaning, because it is the way it was intended by the original BSD source code owners, and successive contributors. And everyone knows that BSD is a permissive license.
 
OpenFreeNet said:
In case of ambiguity, the BSD license must be interpreted using its "commonly accepted" meaning, because it is the way it was intended by the original BSD source code owners, and successive contributors. And everyone knows that BSD is a permissive license.
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Precisely, there's also the issue that it's a license to use the code in that way, it's not a contract which brings with it any particular obligation beyond the ability to use the source in ways that follow from it. It's also unclear why consumer law would be applicable as there's no sale of the software here and the people ultimately using the software are not themselves paying for the privilege.

As you note, the PS provided by Sony is what's being sold and it comes with it's own EULA that covers things, it's a rather large leap from them selling without providing the code that they're not required to provide under the license to this. Plus, a good chunk of the code is open and available, it's mostly just Sony specific source that has limited use on other systems that's not being distributed.
 
hedwards said:
Feel free to try your luck in court, but it's going to be an extremely expensive lesson that just because you CAN argue something does not mean that it has any power in court.
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That has zero cost, even in US. You can always file a complaint at the consumer protection office.
OpenFreeNet said:
If Sony reuse BSD code in the PlayStation, it is responsible of all aspects of the consumer laws of the nation where it commercializes/sells its product. The BSD disclaimer (i.e. "THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED `'AS IS″ AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES...") is needed for protecting the authors of BSD source code. They are giving away source code, without promising it is bug-free.
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Why must you omit the part where it says contributors aren't liable for damages? A company can potentially use the disclaimer in their favor, claiming they're contributors. And that wouldn't work out.
 
Sure it would. For the bits they publish under the BSD license. But that's not what Sony does when they sell you a Playstation. Sony is on the hook for that specific product. If the PS contains code that causes damage to PS owners, those owners get their day in court because of their purchase of the PS product and bounded by the law governing that product and the purchase agreement. If that same code now sits in FreeBSD because Sony contributed it upstream, nobody has any leg to stand on if it makes a random FreeBSD server elsewhere in the world eat their homework.
 
ralphbsz said:
Where would the right to "use in source form" come from in the case of BSD-licensed software? That's a question you have not been able to answer yet. It does definitely not come from the BSD license. Nor from the various Brazilian laws you quote.
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Is this a joke? I bet you're the one confused about the law.
ralphbsz said:
Not only are you quite confused about the law yourself, you are actively making others confused by failing to explain and translate some Brasilian / Portuguese concepts and words.
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Yeah, I couldn't be more confused about the law. I called PROCON, twice, and was told I do have the right to obtain the sources, twice. I consulted a lawyer, and was told I do have the right to obtain the sources. The "Promotor" archived the case as heterogeneous matter. The "Promotor" never denied the right to obtain the sources. How confused I'm. Whoa!
 
(edited due bad insert)

Krush206 said in the post which ralphbsz answered:

By selling a product whose contract stipulates "use in source form," and failing to deliver such form, the supplier violates Art. 1.228 of the Código Civil, preventing the licensee from fully using and enjoying the acquired product, constituting undue retention of an essential component for the exercise of the right.
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but obviously SONY is not selling the PlayStation with a contract that stipulates "use in source form", because BSD license does not apply to the PlayStation as a product. The BSD license grants permissions to SONY for using the BSD code inside the PlayStation product, only if they meet some conditions. It is a license and not a contract, and it is between SONY and the authors and contributors of BSD code, not with the users of the product.

ralphbsz checked also the content of the cited articles, in his answer, and they are not related to the oblige to release source code for particular products, but only to the oblige to respect a contract in general. And then, they do not apply to the SONY scenario.
 
It appears the OP somehow believes the licence propagates throughout the supply chain, which of course it doesn't. He seems to think because I received the code under the BSD licence I am also distributing it with the BSD licence, which I'm not. The final consumer does not agree to the licence and is not bound by it. The right he cites is only for the person who receives the source code, not for the person who receives any subsequent binary built from it. Of course, PROCON probably think he is that person rather than a downstream third party.

If you receive the source code under the licence there is no possibility of it being withheld. For that to happen you would have to be denied access after you had agreed to the licence, but you only agree to it if you obtain it, so that is impossible.
 
I come to believe that the license terms the lawers read is any of translations to Portguese only (not consulting effective original English version) and the translation is not precise (at worst, be of GPL, not BSD!!!!!!).
 
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