[ibotty]

AVM is notorious for GPL violations. I cannot say anything about these patents (aside from stating the fact that all software patents are bogus, because math cannot be patented), but I would not be surprised if they intentionally violated them.

[helsinkiandrew]

The patent is about how packets could be structured and sent on a wireless network, so not necessarily a "software patent".

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/0581867...

[smashed]

It seems to be about the "structure" of a packet, meaning bit fields that indicate if the packet is for a single user or multicast?

That seems more to me like a mere protocol convention, exactly the kind of stuff that should be in a standard communication protocol just so everyone agrees on the same fields.

How is that a new "invention"?

[arp242]

What GPL violations? I can't really find anything on than a single case from 2011 where AVM tried to prevent another company from distributing modified firmware for their routers.

There's a lot of things you can say about that, but it's arguably not really a "GPL violation" as commonly understood, and a single incident in almost 40 years of history doesn't make a company "notorious".

[jeroenhd]

Back in 2020 they also attempted to stop the sale of modified AVM second hand products running custom firmware based on the code they had to publish because of the GPL restrictions. They're still trying very hard to prevent people from modifying their hardware after purchase.

The freedom to take a device and modify it to run your own changes is what the GPL is all about. Let's not forget the modern open source movement was the result of someone not being able to load a custom font into a printer. Do you think Stallman would've been satisfied if Xerox had given him the source code he asked for, but then indicated they'd sue him if he tried to load any modified software onto the printer?

AVM's interpretation of the license ("you can modify the GPL software but you're not allowed to flash it onto the device") was shot down by the court, and rightly so.

I think a company actively going after another to prevent exercising the software freedoms granted by the GPL makes them deserving of being called "notorious". It's a shitty practice in general, but it's especially shitty when you do it for GPL firmware.

[arp242]

> Back in 2020 they also attempted to stop the sale of modified AVM second hand products running custom firmware

I can't find anything on that.

(and it's not that I disbelieve you, but details do matter, so very high-level descriptions isn't something I can really do anything with).

[pantalaimon]

https://www.heise.de/select/ct/2020/8/2006507573746296454

[jeroenhd]

All I knew was what was reported in Dutch tech news. It looks like AVM won: https://www.heise.de/news/Rechtsstreit-um-gebrauchte-Fritzbo...

I just read up on the details, as best as I could with machine translation and my terrible German anyway.

Basically, a couple of thousand modems made for ISPs that got sold off after replacement ended up getting bought by Woog, which then flashed the latest official firmware for the hardware (which wasn't distinct from the carrier hardware in any way) into them. AVM didn't want them to sell carrier modems with unlocked firmware.

When I read about this stuff first, it was all labeled "custom firmware", but it looks like the firmware wasn't so custom after all.

Either way, AVM sued a company selling second hand hardware and now a tens thousands of perfectly functional modems seemingly ended up in a landfill somewhere.

[arp242]

As I understand it, it's more of a trademark thing than GPL thing, but I'm also just relying on my German lessons where my favourite word was "schlaffen", and trademark law mostly just seems to be the "most convenient law" rather than an actual trademark dispute.

I kind of understand AVM's viewpoints on that one because they probably had a special deal with the ISP to sell these modems at a cheap price and now they're basically competing against themselves, but scrapping thousands of perfectly functional devices is of course just silly. My fritzbox had a "eco mode" or some such and I'm pretty sure that the scrapping completely obliterated the savings of eco mode of all fritzboxes combined.

I'm not hugely impressed by either case, but I also don't really think it backs up the "AVM is notorious for GPL violations" and "they intentionally violated the patents" (with an implied "they just ignore any IP law they don't like").

[ibotty]

You might have missed my comment. It's not easy to get the sources which you as customer have the right to get. They are notorious, because they never comply voluntarily and for some models never comply. Just because people are not suing them all the time does not make it less of an issue.

See https://github.com/Freetz-NG/freetz-ng/discussions/134 (and possibly translate it).

[hulitu]

They also do not support 3rd party DECTs. I had to use a cable to my Fritzbox to be able to use a DECT with addressbook. When connected as a DECT, The Fritzbox will not transmit the addressbook to the phone.

[jeroenhd]

It's been a few years, but they definitely do support third party DECT phones. If I recall correctly, they even had to remove the "missed call" indicator on some brand of DECT phone (Siemens?) because they reverse engineered it and the manufacturer was (threatening? taking?) legal action.

Unfortunately, the DECT spec as implemented by many manufacturers isn't as broad as people seem to think it is. Most interoperability was done through DECT GAP last time I checked, and GAP lacks common features like "rich caller ID" and "address books".

I've seen other brands do address book support just fine, I think AVM tries to be compatible enough but just can't get the full feature set for every brand and model.

I've even seen Gigaset phones failing to support address books on more modern Gigaset basestations, DECT hardware is kind of a mess in that way.

[Nab443]

I'm using a Gigaset DECT phone with a FRITZ!Box 7530 AX, the address book works fine.

[radicalbyte]

I wasn't aware of that, do you have sources?

It's really odd seeing Chinese companies taking someone to court for IP infringement given that that is the modus operandi of Chinese companies and has been for decades.

[lucubratory]

The PRC started enforcing US/Berne copyrights quite seriously for big companies 5-10 years ago, after negotiations with the US under the Obama administration. They actually licence, buy, or invent huge amounts of IP today, straight rip-offs in China now are mostly just small time hustlers on Alibaba that everyone hates. For example, Huawei spends gigantic amounts of money on R&D, equivalent to Apple and more than Samsung.

Part of those negotiations would have been that China is not unfairly excluded from being able to own IP and prosecute others for the same laws it was agreeing to be subject to.

[sgift]

Nothing weird about it, has also been part of their MO for a long time. If a Chinese company infringes it's okay in their mind cause they have to "catch up", but if they can use it to go against Non-Chinese companies: Bring it on.

[ibotty]

https://github.com/Freetz-NG/freetz-ng/discussions/134 is the first I could find re getting the sources. Note, that the GPL requires the sources in "the preferred form" and that includes a way to build them (if AVM has a way to build the sources, which they certainly have).

Last time I got (or a customer had) a AVM box I requested the sources and got nothing that could even build (invalid C files, AFAIR).