It turns out that Lego was violating the GPL by copying an open source library
It turned out that the software created by a subsidiary of the Danish toy maker Lego, known for Lego blocks, uses the Blender library, an open source 3DCG creation software. Since the library is released under
On what version of Cycles is Bricklink Stud.io's Eyesight renderer based? - Cycles Development - Developer Forum
https://devtalk.blender.org/t/on-what-version-of-cycles-is-bricklink-stud-ios-eyesight-renderer-based/
This issue was triggered by a question posted on Blender's developer forum in February 2021. According to it, the questioner referred to the manual of Blender's rendering engine when using the Lego design software ' Studio '.
by
From this connection, when the questioner asked on the Blender forum how to check the version of the Studio library, the corresponding Blender developer, Ray Molenkamp, who is famous for the handle 'LazyDodo', said that the Studio library Discover that Blender's library is used in
In response to the questioner, Molenkamp said, ``I was bored, so I looked into Studio's source code a bit, and found that they were building using some of Blender's SVN libraries, so checking the source is It was easy. I knew immediately that it was our library because the path embedded in some source files was a local path on my PC.'
After Molenkamp quickly identified the version and fixed the problem, the questioner thanked Molenkamp and closed the forum for the time being.
Almost two years later, on March 16, 2023, social news site Hacker News picked up on the exchange, stating, 'Lego violates the GPL by keeping the source of its Blender-based BrickLink Studio private. ', and it became a hot topic , and at the time of writing the article, 147 comments were received. This incident also spread to Reddit, a bulletin board-type social news site, and threads were set up on subreddits dealing with Hacker News topics and open source related subreddits.
by Rodrigo Contreras Kobrich
The aforementioned Studio is software created by BrickLink, an online marketplace that buys and sells Lego parts, but since BrickLink was acquired by Lego, it has become official Lego design software. As mentioned above, BrickLink's Studio uses a library diverted from Blender, and this library is GPLed, so BrickLink, which has not released it with the same license to Studio, and its parent company Lego The main problem with this case is that it violates the GPL.
In a thread on Hacker News, 'It's not necessarily an excuse, but Studio was built by BrickLink, not by Lego. I think it's very possible that this small team created Studio without considering the legal stuff,' a post showing a certain understanding, and 'Small Size does not exempt you from complying with the law, and it is also a problem that Lego did not investigate well at the time of acquisition, ”There were writings criticizing Lego for neglecting to confirm the license.
Also on Reddit: 'Sadly, a license only carries weight if someone decides to sue over it. Most open source projects are either obsessed with development or dead. Since it is a project that is in progress, I do not have the human resources, energy, or funds to fight in court,' the lamenting writing gathered the most Upvotes (approval votes).
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by u/aTheoryOfOne from discussion Lego violates GPL by keep Blender-based BrickLink Studio source closed (2021)
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In the Blender forum, it was reported that this case became a hot topic two years after the resolution, but Mr. Molenkamp said, ``Using our SVN library is not a bad thing, and there Many libraries have more permissive licenses than Blender, and while I'm not going to stop the idea of forcing Lego to open-source Studio, I'd rather not dig up a two-year-old thread out of the grave. Let's do it,' and showed that he did not intend to take any special measures.
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in Software, Posted by log1l_ks