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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!"
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
"This is Zombo Com, and welcome to you who have come to Zombo Com" - www.zombo.com
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