Palm Sued Over PDF Technology Dispute
San Rafael based Artifex software has brought a suit against Palm Inc. in the U.S. District Court for northern California. The company claims Palm Inc. infringed on its copyright for its PDF rendering engine which is used in webOS.
Artifex is the developer and copyright owner of muPDF, a high-performance PDF rendering engine targeted at mobile devices. The company alleges that Palm improperly integrated muPDF in the Palm Pre's "PDF viewer" application without Artifex's authorization and in violation of the GPL.
The muPDF software is available under the GPL or a commercial license. Artifex's main dispute claims that Palm has not bought a commercial license. The company claims Palm's own documentation admits including Artifex's muPDF in Palm's Pre product as the PDF rendering engine in their PDF viewer application, but Palm neither obtained a commercial license from Artifex nor complied with the terms of the GPL.
"Artifex makes the choice simple for those who copy Artifex software for distribution: Comply with the terms of the GPL, sign an OEM license agreement with Artifex, or do not distribute our software," says Miles Jones, president of Artifex Software.
Palm's webOS PDF viewing application ships standard on both the Palm Pre and the Palm Pixi. It even includes a default document which details Palm's open source technologies and related information. In addition, Palm maintains an open source portal where users can view and download the source code and patch files for many open source webOS components including the PDF viewer in question.
Thanks to Slashdot for the tip.
Article Comments
(9 comments)
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. PalmInfocenter is not responsible for them in any way.
Please Login or register here to add your comments.
RE: Less Than Meets the Eye?
RE: Less Than Meets the Eye?
RE: Less Than Meets the Eye?
...
Palm neither obtained a commercial license from Artifex nor complied with the terms of the GPL.
Palm using things w/o the proper authority to do so? NEVER!!!
BTW, when is itunes syncing being re-enabled???
RE: Less Than Meets the Eye?
For example, you take a piece of GPL software and add it into your own proprietary software and then distribute it, you have to make the source for your WHOLE (distinct) thing available.
Or something like that.
RE: Less Than Meets the Eye?
http://www.artifex.com/pressreleases/palm.htm
so they don't actually have to pay anything, they just have to reveal more than they did (or, apparently, they CAN pay something and NOT reveal more than they did...I didn't know the GPL even allowed that).
RE: Less Than Meets the Eye?
SeldomVisitor wrote:
Okay, HERE'S exactly what Palm is accused of not doing:http://www.artifex.com/pressreleases/palm.htm
so they don't actually have to pay anything, they just have to reveal more than they did (or, apparently, they CAN pay something and NOT reveal more than they did...I didn't know the GPL even allowed that).
Dual licenses are permitted, but Palm gets to choose which license they want to use. The link is not really useful since it doesn't say how the GPL was violated.
If the GPL code is in a separate library then the binary doesn't have to be open source. I believe if you ship the source for the library, it is fine. I am not an expert, though.
Darth, What are the contents of the tar/gzip?
RE: Less Than Meets the Eye?
== "...Palm's own documentation admits including Artifex's muPDF in Palm's
== Pre product as the PDF rendering engine in their PDF viewer application..."
so it looks to me like Palm can throw money at Artifex OR Palm can GPL the source to their PDF viewer and be done with this.
Latest Comments
- I got one -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Don't we have this already? -Tuckermaclain
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -richf
- RE: Palm brand will return in 2018, with devices built by TCL -dmitrygr
- Palm phone on HDblog -palmato
- Palm PVG100 -hgoldner
- RE: Like Deja Vu -PacManFoo
- Like Deja Vu -T_W
Less Than Meets the Eye?
http://opensource.palm.com/1.3.1/index.html
Shows .tar and gzip files for mupdf. So whatever GPL violation Palm may have committed has either already been repaired or is so minor that it can be easily fixed.
Palm Apologist
Shouting down the PIC Faithful Since 2009
Screw convergence
Palm III->Visor Deluxe->Visor Platinum->Visor Prism->Tungsten E->Palm LifeDrive->Palm TX->Palm Pre
Visor Pro+VisorPhone->Treo 180g->Treo 270->Treo 600->Treo 680->T-Mobile G1->Palm Pre
http://mind-grapes.blogspot.com/