I am, like Tav, a little skeptical on how far we want to take it, but I think that this is a reasonable first step. I vote a. Hope it comes down to just a communication issue.

Ted

On Mon, 2015-04-20 at 00:41 -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote: 
A majority vote of the current board members is required for the
following Inkscape GPL violation matter.

Proposal:

        [ ]  a.  Approve purchase of Digital Fashion Pro by the
	     	 Conservancy lawyers, up to $250.
        [ ]  b.  Approve purchase of Digital Fashion Pro by the
	         Conservancy lawyers, at any price.
        [ ]  c.  Do not	approve	purchase

Background:

Hi guys,

It's been brought to our attention that there is a company selling
software called Digital Fashion Pro, which in actuality is just Inkscape
with some templates thrown in, and a price tag in the hundreds or
thousands of dollars.  It appears they neither mention that the software
is open source under the GPL, nor make offers of source code for
download, which is a GPL violation.

In order to establish legal proof of the violation, Conservancy needs to
verify the lack of source offer, and to do that they need to examine a
purchased copy of the software.  Their policy is to ask the infringed
project (i.e. us) to foot the bill for that copy.  If it is found that
the company is in fact in violation, they will be asked (or legally
required) to repay this amount.  They may also be required to pay legal
fees, and to come into compliance with the GPL.

The price of the software has varied during the time of observation.
Currently it is "on sale" for $200, but I've seen it offered at $500
and even $1500.

Please see below for the Conservancy's estimation of the likely
best/typical/worst case resolution of this.

Bryce

------------------------------------------------------------------------
On 04/08/2015 04:33 AM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> Before we get too far into this, can I ask a basic question?
> What is the best/likely/worst outcomes we should expect from engaging
> with them on this?

Probably the best outcome would be for us to find that they already 
include a fully-compliant source release of Digital Fashion Pro along 
with the product itself, and that they are willing to update their 
advertising to make it clear that Digital Fashion Pro is a modified 
version of Inkscape (assuming that lack of clarity is one of the current 
issues).  Even better would be for them to release Digital Fashion Pro 
and its source code at no charge, but I don't think this is likely given 
that it seems to be a main revenue stream so I wouldn't consider it a 
possible outcome really.  Another good outcome would be that, though 
they didn't ship source initially, they give us a source candidate when 
we first contact them and it happens to be compliant, so we charge them 
for our time and they pay us.  They might even agree to allow us to 
write a Conservancy blog post praising them for coming into compliance, 
though usually companies don't since they don't like people knowing that 
they weren't in compliance to begin with.  But if we did get that, 
perhaps by giving them a discount on what we charge them for our time 
checking their source, it would be very helpful in deterring future 
violators and encouraging compliance generally, as people would see 
Conservancy is reasonable and willing to work with violators to amicably 
resolve issues without public shaming.

The worst outcome would be that we spend a lot of resources on this 
issue and it drags on for a year or more and they're unwilling to budge 
so we have to file a lawsuit and we eventually have to agree to a 
settlement that offers only the minimum compliance required by the GPL. 
  That minimum compliance might not resolve the trademark issues, which 
we could try to resolve some other way (through a separate action, 
possibly also including a lawsuit).  "Minimum compliance" would in 
practice likely involve them providing source only to people who have 
purchased Digital Fashion Pro and who have asked for source.  Also, we 
may have to keep chasing them as they may then release new versions that 
are not compliant.  Note that we very rarely file lawsuits to achieve 
compliance - this is a worst-case scenario.

A likely outcome is that we buy Digital Fashion Pro, find that it 
doesn't include source code or an offer for source code, and then when 
we ask for source, they initially claim they don't need to send us any, 
but eventually they capitulate and send us some source code they think 
corresponds to the Digital Fashion Pro binaries they ship.  We will 
probably need to go back and forth with them a few times when it doesn't 
build correctly, but we will likely reach a point where they have 
provided all the source to us.  We'll ask them to include an offer for 
source with their product, which they'll do, and provide source on a CD 
or similar to anyone who's bought the product and asks for source.  This 
who process would probably take 6 months to a year.  I hesitate somewhat 
to say this is a "likely outcome", but given the information I have so 
far (see below), it's difficult to provide a more accurate assessment.

Another possible outcome is that they agree to stop distributing Digital 
Fashion Pro and any other software that includes or is based on 
Inkscape.  This would be compliant, but is also an unlikely outcome 
since Inkscape-derived copies of software seem to be one of their main 
revenue streams.

> I ask because I know it'll be a hassle to pursue this, and want to make
> sure the benefits are going worth the effort.  I'll need to get
> Inkscape's board to agree to pay for the validation copy of the
> software, so I'd like to communicate to them what outcome we're aiming
> to see.

Hopefully the above will help with that, though I would emphasize that 
it's very difficult to tell where any violation matter might go, 
especially in a situation like this where it is extremely unclear how 
close to compliance they might be (without buying the software).  One 
option for getting a better idea without buying Digital Fashion Pro 
would be to contact a person who has received Digital Fashion Pro and 
ask them whether the distribution they received was compliant - we could 
contact such a person for you if you know of one.  In any case, we will 
probably have a much better idea of the willingness of Digital Fashion 
Pro's distributors to work with us after we have downloaded Digital 
Fashion Pro and made initial contact with them (assuming it is 
violating, which seems likely).  We could most likely make this initial 
contact within a month or two of us buying Digital Fashion Pro.


Let me know if you have any questions about any of this.  Thanks!

Denver
------------------------------------------------------------------------


----- Forwarded message from Denver Gingerich <compliance@...41...> -----

Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2015 18:15:31 -0400
>From: Denver Gingerich <compliance@...41...>
To: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...107...>
Cc: Karen Sandler <karen@...41...>, Tony Sebro <tony@...41...>
Subject: Re: GPL violation on Inkscape

On 03/31/2015 02:16 PM, Bryce Harrington wrote:
> Hi Karen,
> 
> Guessing this got lost amongst all the GPL violation mail...  I know
> you're really busy.  Real quick though, is this something SFC might be
> able to help us with, or should we pursue it ourselves?

Yes, Conservancy can help with this, though we will likely need more
facts in order to take action.  I've described what we need below.

Apologies for the delay in responding; compliance matters like this
are generally handled by me, but I only work at Conservancy one day a
week.

> On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 05:20:09PM -0700, Bryce Harrington wrote:
>> Hi Karen,
>> 
>> See email from Maren below.  This company is selling a product called
>> Digital Fashion Pro for $1446 (academic price $499), which consists of
>> Inkscape bundled with some training materials and templates.  You can
>> see the software is just rebranded Inkscape via their main video:
>> 
>>    http://startingaclothingline.com/html/pu-demo.html

There are likely both copyright and trademark issues here.  I mainly
work with the copyright issues myself; I've CCed Tony, Conservancy's
general counsel, who has more knowledge of trademark issues.

To continue with investigating the possible copyright infringement
case (that is, the potential GPL violation), we normally prefer to
have some "hard evidence".  To obtain this evidence, we'd like to
purchase Digital Fashion Pro to confirm that it does indeed violate
the GPL (likely by failing to provide source code or an offer for
source).

I see at http://shop.startingaclothingline.com/ that "1b- Digital
Fashion Pro V8 Basic" is currently available for $199.  That seems to
be the least expensive version that's likely to include Inkscape.
With enforcement work like this, we typically ask the member project
to pay any direct costs, such as the $199 cost of buying Digital
Fashion Pro in this case, but we do not charge the member project for
any Conservancy staff time.  Of course, we will ask the violator to
pay our costs, including the cost of buying the product (ie. Digital
Fashion Pro), which would then revert to the member project.  However,
be aware that we often aren't able to collect from violators, for a
variety of reasons.

For more details about Conservancy's usual procedures for enforcing
the GPL, feel free to read
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-enforcement/ .

>> Also, on their troubleshooting page it explicitly references "Free IS.48
>> Vector Application", which they copy protect with a serial number to
>> unlock it during install.
>> 
>>    http://startingaclothingline.com/html/troubleshooting.html

It's hard to say from that page exactly how the serial number is being
used and whether their method would violate the GPL.  Since we should
obtain the software anyway in order to check more general compliance,
we can assess the serial number issue once we receive the software.

>> ----- Forwarded message from maren@...92... -----
>> 
>> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2015 22:56:58 +0100
>> From: maren@...92...
>> To: Bryce Harrington <bryce@...2...>
>> Subject: Strange Inkscape redistribution - could this be a GPL violation?
[...]
>> You can follow up on this here:
>> https://answers.launchpad.net/inkscape/+question/263166
>> 
>> Also, it is not clear if they offer a modified version or the original
>> software. At least they seem to call it differently.

This is another fact pattern that we'd like to confirm, which again
would be most easily done after we receive the software.


Please let me know if you have any questions at all about any of this.
Thanks!

Denver Gingerich
FLOSS License Compliance Engineer
Software Freedom Conservancy

----- End forwarded message -----

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