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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!"
So basically, people go around seeking license infringers and go after them legally when they don't follow it?
How is this different from the RIAA going after its infringers? In both cases, they're intellectual property violations.
Are we only for the idea of intellectual property when it applies to GPL authors? I mean, why should I follow the GPL anyway? I'm told in one situation that copyright is flawed and evil, and in the next I'm told to follow GPL copyright.
Just playing devil's advocate here.
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!
The story doesn't get posted on /. until someone is willing to trade sexual favors in exchange for getting their article published. As a result, there'll always be some lag time between when a story breaks and when it gets posted.
/. editors. (I hear this is the shortest step, and actually adds very little in terms of lag time)
/. readers to enjoy.
First, someone needs to notice it, and get emotionally involved.
Next, someone needs to care enough to trade sexual favors.
Then, someone actually has to shag one of the
Finally, the article gets posted for all the
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
...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
Please note, amoral (without morals), not immoral (with bad morals).
In other words, they'll defend the worst torturing serial killer with the same aplomb and indifference as they'll defend the most innocent child. It's in the nature of the profession, to do their utmost for their clients with total clarity and detachment.
It sounds good, but unfortunately, this is also why they prosecute 11-year olds and grannies on behalf of the RIAA.
If you're looking for morals and socially beneficial conduct, attorneys and their related legal brethren would not be the best place to start looking. An attorney with a personal agenda to do good (or bad) would be a corrupt attorney, unable to perform his legal duties fairly.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
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.
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
I guess I've not been paying attention to all the posts in other threads that are so anti-GPL, but I had no idea there were so many asses out there who believe GPL is anti business.
Let me be clear... the GPL is anti-bad business. GPL is pro-good business and pro consumer. And remember businesses are consumers too, the bad businesses are primarily the huge bureaucratic companies which turn out buggy lame software that doesn't always do what you expect it to do.
Now let me define what is bad business. Bad business consists of companies who do their best to create software libraries and intellectual property manifests with the sole purpose of maybe, possibly, making money. That information is sealed and protected so that in order to get at it, you have to pay someone for it.
This is based on the idea that companies have make something tangible to make money. Proprietary software is tangible enough to make money from the masses because they often buy it as tangible.
Big businesses build up this repetoire of "intellectual property" and sit on it for years. It's okay to benefit from a good idea, but copywrite laws these days take it too far. Copywritable material now has an age of 90 years, it used to be 20! Current copywrite laws therefore allow companies like disney to sit on their repetoire and continue to make money off it and don't encourage them to make new material. These businesses are not sensitive to consumer wants and needs, and stifle competition because having huge amounts of Intellectual property that no one else can ever touch is an unfair competitive advantage.
Customers who use GPL are forced to be more creative, because everyone has access to the same software! Consumers win because companies have to be more competitive. Microsoft can sit on their ass right now and say "You want an office package? Great, here's our package for $600 a person. What, you don't want to pay that price? Lick my ass n00b, you can't do shit without my software, we 0wnz j00r ass!"
Here's another way to look at it. Before the internet, most networks were proprietary. Closed off and not communicating with each other. Companies had their own networks, colleges has theirs, and some of them even tried to create VANs (value added networks) to perform EDI (electronic data interchange). Most of those attempts were novel but they sucked. When the internet came out, everyone was suddenly connected. Now EDI is easy, because as long as your computer is on the internet, I can build something that communicates with you seamlessly.
I believe I once read in an article that innovation is increased when you unbundle functions of a system. For example, if IBM owned the internet, and you had to pay a fee to use it, this would stifle innovation because not everyone would be able to or want to pay the fee. Think about the internet vs phone networks. Phone networks have features like call waiting and call blocking and voice mail and caller ID. However, phone networks can only be used for phone calls (without DSL of course). The internet is simply build on a protocol of information transfer from point a to point b, but it has unlimited uses. You can take phone calls over the internet now, and not use the phone network at all. what's even greater is that if you have 5 ISPs to chose from, you can take your VoIP to any of those ISPs and use it seamlessly, because each ISP implements a standard internet connection. They compete on service!
I'm getting off topic but it all has to do with competition. Competition has been lacking in the last several decades, because people think it's okay for big companies to hold big power. The GPL is simply taking current overly controlling law and turning it against itself by guarenteeing that information released under it is free.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
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
Thank you for your integrity. It is rarer these days to find people that make corrections like you did and alert enough to answer on Slashdot.
It is refreshing to see this, even if it is unfortunate that the first headline was put in place and it may point to a need to review editorial workflow so that it doesn't happen in the future.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
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