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GPL Successfully Defended in German Court
Philip Bailey writes "The GPL Violations Project, based in Germany, have won (subject to appeal) a court case against D-Link, who had allegedly distributed parts of the Linux kernel in a product in a way which contravened the GPL. D-Link had claimed that the GPL was not 'legally binding' but have now agreed to cease and desist, and refrain from distributing the infringing product, a network attached storage device. Expenses, including legal expenses, were received by the plaintiffs; they did not request any damages, consistent with their policy. They have previously won a number of out of court settlements against other companies. Slashdot has previously mentioned the GPL Violations Project."
The thing is, even if the GPL is not legally binding... what else gives D-Link the right to distributed copyrighted works of others? Answer: Nothing
That's interesting. I recently purchased a range of Gigabit network cards. An Intel Pro/1000, an Blekin and a D-Link. The D-Link box contained a printed copy of the GPL. So they clearly do consider the GPL binding, otherwise why would they have bothered? This is the first time I have ever seen a printed GPL included with a product.
I havn't checked the driver CDs in the Intel & Belkin cards yet to see if they have Linux drivers on them. While I'm at it, also shame on Intel for not mentioning Linux on the box; Novell & Windows logos are there, but nothing for Linux (The Belkin & D-Link boxes do not mention any OS compatability at all)
The difference is that an EULA is a forced contract you have to sign after purchasing the product and before using it that restricts rights you usually have while the GPL is simply a written version of the terms the copyright holder has set for copying the software. The GPL is the condition under which the copyright holder is willing to make concessions to you while an EULA is an attempt to extend the powers of the copyright holder beyond those granted by law.
And AFAIK EULAs aren't considered valid under German law.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
It's easy. It always depends on the rights you are defending. GPL is defending the right to copy, modify and distribute. *AA is defending the right to stop you from copying, modifying and distributing.
...that your perceptions are maybe the result of different groups of people comprising the slashdot community? I've found that my own opinions on certain subjects are in a minority, while on other subjects they seem to be in the majority. I've even witnessed that on certain topics, moderation of certain viewpoints that you think would be related, turn out differently depending on the topic. I suspect this is due to many people, like myself for example, who just don't read certain topics, while reading other topics faithfully.
I myself have a very low opinion of those who think they have a right to copy whatever they want because "information wants to be free". I see such people as manufacturing reasons to justify their own shoddy behavior. OTOH, I have a very high opinion of the GPL(and other open source licenses) and those who defend them.
Just keep that in mind.
"Our morality is good, theirs is repressive."- Partisanship Rule #3
I don't know were you got this idea but it is wrong.p atibleLibs
He got it from here:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncom
The GPL is NOT legally binding. It never has been, and it never claimed to be.
Copyright law is legally binding. If you want to distribute copies of software (Be it Microsoft's or Richard's or Linus's) you need permission from the copyright holder. You're quite welcome to completely ignore the GPL, but in that case you have no permission to distribute copies of the software and doing so becomes copyright violation.
It's really simple.
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