Slashdot Mirror
Munich Court Again Enforces GPL
BrianWCarver writes "Despite earlier concerns reported on Slashdot that the GPL might be particularly difficult to enforce in Germany, that country's courts now hold the distinction of having enforced it twice. The first enforcement came in 2004 when Harald Welte of the netfilter/iptables core team sought to enjoin Sitecom from distributing its WL-122 router, which used netfilter's GPL'd code, without also providing the source code and a copy of the GPL, as that license requires. The Munich Court granted Welte a preliminary injunction and then upheld that injunction (Court's decision in English pdf) and now Sitecom provides the source code from their website. Welte, who also now runs gpl-violations.org to track GPL violations, and who personally handed over warning letters at Cebit to companies not in compliance with the GPL, reported on his blog today that he has obtained a new preliminary injunction enforcing the GPL, this time against Fortinet for distributing their firewall products (FortiGate and FortiWiFi) that include GPL'd code while Fortinet refuses to release the source. Congratulations again to Welte and his attorneys!"
is here
:)
The rest, you can find on your own.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
http://jeremy.linuxquestions.org/blog/_archives/20 05/3/22/464220.html
DrewTech vs SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers)
DrewTech developed some GPL code, and SAE said that they owned it and refused to release the source, and were charging money for it.
SAE gave up on their claims of ownership and released the source.
I feel it's more of an issue of the SAE debating the origin of the code than actually contesting the GPL, though.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
...but I'd just assume eat a copy of Windows XP...
I think you mean you'd just as soon eat a copy of Windows XP
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
If you don't mind releasing source and contributing changes/improvements back to the community, you can use the code for free. But, if you want to create a closed-source/proprietary project, you can buy a license that allows it. MySQL does this.
The GPL does not create an anti-business environment in and of itself. It merely a licensing option that can be part of a portfolio of licensing options developers make available to those who want to use their code.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Okay, well I'm calling your ass right the hell now :)
Here you can find a Slashdot story about a German court ruling upholding an older injunction in a similar matter.
Now I'm not an expert on German law, but this sure sounds like a proper upholding in a trial to me.
Funny how the FUDmeisters at C|Net translate the exact same story:
Shadow over open sourcei ctory/2100-7344_3-5671209.html?tag=nefd.lede
German court ruling halts shipments of one company's Linux wares; license spat could soon hit U.S
http://news.com.com/Linux+programmer+wins+legal+v
Yes, I live here (in MUC -- the city, not the airport). I'm not from here. See some of my earlier posts or the "journal".
Anyway, German courts are really screwy. A decision in one court does not necessarily influence another court at the same, higher or even lower level. Just because the high court in the state of Sachsen finds A, B and C, it doesn't mean that the Bavarian high court is bound to accept that as precedent.
Precedent don't mean dick here. Not even when the Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, similar to SCOTUS) hands down a decision. It's kind of freaky, really.
woof.
As the CNET News.com FUDmeister who wrote the story in question, I recommend you also look at the story headline, Linux programmer wins legal victory, which I don't think raises too much FUD around open-source programmers. Nor does the text of the story itself, in my opinion. You had a legitimate gripe with the initial "shadow" wording you quote (which is a sort of uberheadline, not the story headline proper). I didn't write it and didn't agree with it; as soon as I noticed it we changed it. Any time you have a problem with or suggested changes for a story I write, I welcome direct feedback by e-mailing me directly; my byline on the story is a mailto hyperlink. --Stephen Shankland
Without his tenacity and know-how, companies will walk all over us. If you think he isn't deserving of these words, consider that he had to spend 40 hours to discover that Fortinet has indeed violating the GPL. Those assholes were using encryption to obfuscate their use of GPL code.
"Without access to the underlying source code, Welte often has to work hard to find out if GPL software is used in a product. In Fortinet's case, the use of GPL software was unusually difficult to verify, because the company had encrypted it, Welte said. It took 40 hours of work to ferret out the information, he said."
And finally, the just reward.
"The court said Fortinet would have to pay a fine of five to 250,000 euros and that employees would face up to 6 months imprisonment for violation of the injunction. In addition, the company is responsible for Welte's legal fees. "
I can't wait to see more of these cases here in the US so that we can slowly build a nice stack of precedents that will serve to solidify even further the legal standing of the GPL.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
You know of a number of GPL'ed projects which distribute under the GPL or a proprietary license. The GNU General Public License (GPL) is a commercial license because business is done under this license. GPL-covered works are distributed for a fee. The GPL is in no way anti-business. Ironically, I've pointed out some significant ways in which the open source movement fails to speak to business interests as well as free software speaks to all computer users (the open source definition ignores any requirement for private derivatives, for instance).
The free software movement does not want to be confused with the open source movement and the open source movement works hard to distance themselves from freedom talk. Please reconsider trying to conflate the real and important differences between the two movements. The open source movement deserves far less credit than it receives with regard to the GNU GPL, considering they had nothing to do with writing it, building a community around it, and that the open source movement doesn't frame anything in terms of software freedom. Their work in bringing people to freedom is to be commended, but I think when associating a movement with the license (particularly in an article focusing on the license itself), it's important that we give credit to the FSF and associate it with the free software movement.
Digital Citizen