Court Rules GPL Doesn't Violate Antitrust Laws

unix4reel writes "Internet Cases reports on a new decision from a federal court in Chicago holding that 'the GPL and open-source have nothing to fear from the antitrust laws. The suit was against IBM, Red Hat and Novell, arguing that by distributing Linux for free, they offered products at an unbeatably low price (free), thus discouraging new market entrants and stifling competition. The court took a different view, focusing instead on how the GPL fosters new development."

Comments

GPL is a little tough guy

[mapkinase]

Long live common sense!

Unbeatable price?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would contend that OSS released under GPL does have a price.. that is, accepting of the GPL itself. I think that you will find that some people may find that a steep price indeed.

Stifling market entry?

[Miseph]

Admittedly, I didn't RTFA, but if the summary above is at all accurate, and part of the argument is that GPL software being "sold" for free prevents new competition, then isn't the entire argument obviously flawed? Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Blizzard, Adobe, etc. all make a killing on non-GPL software; is someone really going to try and tell me that GPL licensed software has made it too hard for them to compete?

Besides, Linux "vendors" are really in the support business. Nobody is stopping anybody from opening up their own support business for any distro they want. It can't even be argued that the 'vendors" have some sort of unfair advantage because of exclusive access t5o the source code... because they are required to distribute it, for free, to anyone who wants it. Even direct competitors! The only barrier to entry for me from slapping a decal on my car and declaring myself a traveling Linux support tech for hire is that, well, I'd be a thoroughly useless Linux support tech. And blaming that on IBM just won't fly no matter how good my lawyer is.