Anybody use Firescope? Seems to be Zabbix

[Tenzer]

I call upon every zabbix-er to collect and deliver as much as info/evidence as possible, to backup any action.

You can try to take a look at the fifth post in this thread I wrote. It contains some of the odd things I stumbled across when poking around in their demo version.

[otheus]

Firescope EULA

Here is part of the EULA from FireScope (emphasis mine)

4. OPEN SOURCE TERMS. You acknowledge that each Open Source Program is distributed under the Open Source Program license applicable to such Open Source Program, and only such license, and this EULA in no ways supplements or detracts from any term or conditions of such open source license agreement (the "Open Source License"). Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this EULA, you agree and acknowledge that the rights attached to any Open Source Programs provided hereunder are separate from and do not depend on the Open Source Programs being part of, or used in connection with, the Software. If any Open Source Programs are GNU General Public License software, such Open Source Programs will be identified in the Documentation and will be accompanied by any required code, terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification and/or written offer to give the corresponding code.

Note, the following does not constitute legal advice and is not a legal opinion

Keep your cake and eat it too, anyone? The programs provided are "separate from and do not depend on" ZABBIX. That is required to fulfill GPLv2 2b:

You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

However, by bundling their software with the GNU software, and charging a separate license fee, they are clearly violating the latter half of paragraph 2.

Finally, the cost of providing the source code to anyone must be done "at cost". Even if it takes an hour to rip a CD, the person doing the ripping would need to be paid in excess of $40/hr to come up to a charge of $50.

And just a rejoinder, from GPLv2 paragraph 5:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

I now leave it to others to verify that they have, in fact, built software which depends on ZABBIX.

[Alexei]

However, by bundling their software with the GNU software, and charging a separate license fee, they are clearly violating the latter half of paragraph 2.

Exactly!

[otheus]

It's been a long time since I looked at the GPL. Recently I was referred to the FAQ. According to this answer, since Firescope distributes the Zabbix binaries via the Internet, they must also distribute the sources of Zabbix (plus any changes and derivatives).

Alexei, did you add a special license for the libraries that are built as part of the process in creating Zabbix binaries? That is, did you remove restrictions or use the LGPL on the source code that is used to create the run-time libraries for Zabbix?

I'll also quote this from the GPL:

By contrast, pipes, sockets and command-line arguments are communication mechanisms normally used between two separate programs. So when they are used for communication, the modules normally are separate programs. But if the semantics of the communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data structures, that too could be a basis to consider the two parts as combined into a larger program.

So if Firescope is merely communicating with MySQL and the Zabbix server via the socket interface, it might or might not constitute a single program -- it depends on how a judge sees it and whether your lawyer is smarter than theirs. :/
It might well depend on this answer.

[noxis]

Any updates on this?

[suran]

I'd love to see more action taken on this. Companies can't be allowed to abuse opensource codebases.

[illumin8]

I realize this is an old thread, but it kills me to see commercial closed source companies steal so much of Alexei's hard work that he has done over the years. I've been saying for quite some time that Zabbix is better than 99% of the commercial systems available out there.

Alexei, I would strongly recommend that you contact the Free Software Foundation. They have a legal department that will provide you with free legal advice, and will vigorously prosecute GPL violations for you. Most companies usually settle, and the settlement is beneficial because the source code becomes available to all of us.

[illumin8]

Alexei,

I highly recommend that you contact the Software Freedom Law Center, http://www.softwarefreedom.org/

They will provide you with free legal representation for this issue. I already contacted http://www.gpl-violations.org and they were unable to assist.

[Apache]

So? How did this end up?

[Alexei]

I will prepare and publish more details soon. Sorry, currently we all are busy with post-Zabbix 1.8 activities.

[l04drunner]

I will prepare and publish more details soon. Sorry, currently we all are busy with post-Zabbix 1.8 activities.

Hi Alexei, we are interested to know what the current status is with the FireScope saga? Is the matter resolved? Thank you for a quick update.

[Strikem]

This topic has been quiet for some time now - does this mean that FireScope wins...? Unfortunate

[richlv]

well, i guess they were relying on the fact that a small, technical company far away might be less likely to sue them...

[tchjts1]

Interestingly enough... my boss played in a charity golf event the other day at Poppy Hills golf course... he was randomly paired up with the CIO of Firescope.

So what was the final outcome of this?

[linuxgurugamer]

Just got a cease & desist letter from firescope

I contacted Firescope asking for the source a few weeks ago, and just received a cease & desist letter from them.

Strange, all I asked for was the source as required by the GPL.

Their response, ignoring all the legal blurbs, was that:

"Firescope's BSM product under paid for licenses with Zabbix (that Zabbix publicly acknowledged) were completely taken out of the FireScope's BSM product in late 2008 when we could not agree with Zabbix on license arrangements going forward".

I don't know how true this is, since I don't have access to their product.