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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!"
The RIAA suing filesharers == someone taking something prohibitive and making it free
GPL developers suing people who steal their code out of compliance == someone taking something free and making it prohibitive.
There's a fundamental difference in that those stealing GPL code are stealing from EVERYONE, not just from the author.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Welte doesn't do it against private citizens by threatening them to sue, extorting money for settlements. A typical filesharer doesn't sell the downloaded music for money either.
The first thing a filesharer sees from the RIAA is a C&D letter demanding money. Welte tells the infringing companies "We know you use GPLed code in your products you sell. Clean up your act or we will do more than just remind you about it.". At this time, there is no fine to pay if the company complies.
The company in question, Fortinet, ignored him and did what all scumbags do then: they tried to hide the GPL violations by obfuscation.
Exactly, this is what's getting me about all these GPL violators.
We're not asking for money, we're asking for a simple compliance. What the hell is wrong with you that you'd rather spend money paying lawyers to defend your belief that you can take GPL code and use it how you please, than not pay a lawyer, keep your money, and just comply.
Some of these GPL violators have to be idiots, or have idiot lawyers.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Most people who support the GPL view it as copyleft, not copyright. The GPL is a compromise for a non-ideal world. Basically it is exploiting the nature of current freedom-restricting legal structures (copyright) in order to guarantee freedoms that would otherwise be removed.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need the GPL, since everyone would play nice and information would be free. In the real world, the GPL (and similar licenses) are a compromise that safeguard our freedoms.
Therein lies the difference. It is not hypocritical to be in favor of GPL but be against conventional copyright, since the root ideology is very different in the two cases. If it were merely a legal issue, then it would be hypocritical to favor one over the other. However it is not merely legal: it is a matter of ethics and wanting the world to be a certain way. Put more simply: I can be favor of law and order and civilized society in general, but still be against certain laws in particular. This is not hypocritical.
Every time there is an article related to either the GPL or the RIAA someone raises the same argument. And it should get the same answer...
The purpose of the GPL is to ensure freedom. If it wern't for the possibility that someone monopolist would take free code and use it to make obscene profits, while at the same time making that code incompatible with the free versions, most of the "open source" or "free software" work would probably have been Public Domain instead.
The reason RMS devised the GPL was as a great way to subvert the system to force freedom.
The RIAA on the other hand is an immoral, corrupt organization that keeps artists poor, charges obscene prices for music, while using those profits to lobby congress to get themselves infinite copyright against the intent in the US constitution, and stamp out any competing form of music distribution. I don't see any moral comparison at all.
Here is an excellent article that might inform you on the subject.
New Arguments Against P2P: The Phony Moral Debate
Are we only for the idea of intellectual property when it applies to GPL authors? I'm told in one situation that copyright is flawed and evil, and in the next I'm told to follow GPL copyright.
I am for the original intent of copyright and patents in the constitution. Not what they have been corrupted into by mega corporations. Again, the GPL wouldn't need to exist if it wern't for the misbehavior of corporations. Copyright in its present corrupted form is flawed and evil. You should follow the GPL because its purpose is to ensure freedom. Your freedom even. The GPL is to ensure YOUR freedom to use and study the code.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
haha I love how you classify a "real" court as being a "US one". I mean, never mind that the US legal system is the worldwide example of "what not to do", and has no bearing whatsoever on any country that is *not* the US (ie, the majority of the world population, and these days, the places where most of the OSS development is taking place).
-- sudo.ca
Please, this tortured analogy comes up evry time. There are fundamental differences between real property and "intellectual" property. The two are not comparable. The former is diminished by sharing, while the latter is not. The former is covered by laws about real property while the latter is covered by (in this case) copyright law, which has no relation whatsoever to real property law. So leave your analogies about stolen cars, walking into my living room, and transferring money from my bank account to yours, because THEY ARE NOT THE SAME THING.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Geez. I have to assume you have heard the FSF party line by now: "Without copyright the GPL would be unenforceable. It would also be unnecessary".
That's not the way I've ever heard or read it. I've always read it just like that, but without the last sentence. Because that doesn't make any damned sense; why would the absence of copyright law make the GPL unnecessary? I can see how it would make it unenforceable, but it seems to me that in a world without copyright law companies would easily be able to take free (GPL) software and distribute it binary-only without releasing their changes or the source. Which is to say, the GPL would still be necessary if you want to accomplish its goals......it's just that the necessity would be unfulfillable, and it would simply be impossible to do the things that the GPL does. Well, without hired goons.
Why? Because copyright is a good thing. It just needs to be used for the right purposes. Enforcing the GPL is one of them.
Given a choice between free speech and free beer, most people will take the beer.
There is a key difference - not between right and wrong, but between tactics.
The RIAA SHOULD stop copyright infringers just as FOSS groups SHOULD stop GPL violations.
But the RIAA collects coinicidental evidence for high volumes of people and, without nearly enough proof, accuses them all of breaking the law. Yes, alot of them are violators. But everytime you hear "RIAA sues another 200 people" in the headlines at least a handful of them are let off because the accusations were so outlandish compared to reality.
These GPL enforcements are neither broad nor hasteful. These people do their research. They take a suspected GPL violation. Research it until it is a LIKELY GPL violation. Research it until they have PROOF that it is a violation. They then contact the infringer and file for an injunction after fulfilling every RESPONSIBILITY that the ACCUSER should be required to fulfill.
Is copying and sharing music illegal? In most cases yes!
Should perpetrators be stopped? Yes!
Does the same apply to GPL violators? Yes!
It's not a question of legality or right vs. wrong. It's a question of ethics in the quest to stop the violations.
Maybe thats just my $.02, someone "correct" me if they have a different opinion.
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