[ILUG] FortiOS & Linux

[Daniel Goldsmith]

On 4/19/05, kevin lyda <kevin+dated+1114344950.103c50 at ie.suberic.net> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2005 at 01:09:44PM +0100, Niall O Broin wrote:
> > Which, according to Fortinet, is
> >
> > "a very small piece of FortiOS firmware"
> 
> in order to sue for copyright infringement, the gpl-violations people
> have to have a copyright.  so a developer of one of the bits fortinet
> was infringing on assigned his copyright to them.

In this case, the only piece they were sued on was initrd, whose
developer, Harald Welte, is one of the founders of gpl-violations.

> fortinet is playing games here.

No, just spinning. initrd would be a tiny fraction of any firmware code,
so they are justified in claiming 'a very small piece' was affected by
the suit. 

Just because no initrd functionality would destroy the Fortinet thing
doesn't mean that, in one manner of speaking, they are correct in their
assertion. Particulalry when one imagines the conversation had 
with the lawyers, press and managment on one side and the techs
on the other:

PHBs: So how big is this eye-night-orr-dee thing?
Tech: Huge. Without it our systems probably couldn't function.
PHBs: But how large is it, in the box?
Tech: It isn't in the box. It is part of the instructions followed by
the box when a user turns it on.
PHBs: Just the instructions then? Okay, how many instructions
are there, in total?
Tech: Millions.
PHBs: And how many are in itrd?
Tech: Few hundred thousand, max.
PHBs: (Smiling) Ahhhh, a tiny little thing then, nothing to be 
worried about. Here's some performance targets we'll talk 
about later - get back in your cave.

IMO, gpl-violations made a tactical error in not including this info in 
their own press release. The lack of any reference to it makes them
seem like zealots, pushing the greater picture to the detriment of a 
legal argument which they have already won.

Regards,

Daniel.