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.

Re:Unbeatable price?

[Roger_Wilco]

Wrong.

Like copyright law, the GPL says nothing about users. It merely grants people the right to make copies under certain conditions. Since using it does not require any permissions you do not already have, you do not need to accept the license to use it.

The same would be the case for non-free software, except for the existance of EULAs. (And they may be on shaky legal ground.)

Seriously, folks, read it sometime. It's the clearest bit of legalese you're likely to find.

Interesting thing about the opinion...

[Anonymous Coward]

See http://www.internetcases.com/library/cases/2006-11 -09_wallace_v_ibm.pdf, where the judge goes off the rails of reality in the very first paragraph:

Authors who distribute their works under this license, devised by the Free Software Foundation, Inc., authorize not only copying but also the creation of derivative works--and the license prohibits charging for the derivative work.

If the Court makes a mistake that fundamental -- the idea that you can't charge for software derived from other GPL software -- then we should all consider ourselves lucky that the opinion in toto was correct. IANAL, but doesn't this kind of "bug" open up possible avenues for appeal?

Victory over a paper tiger.

[Anonymous Coward]

The goodness of this victory is diluted by the fact that Wallace didn't have the money to properly argue his case. As such, it doesn't have much value as a precident. If someone with big bucks was making the argument, and if the GPL was being defended by someone with no resources, the decision could have gone the other way.

Note that the bully boys of the RIAA always go after people who don't have the resources to defend themselves. Even then they lose the occasional case. Justice in this country goes to whoever can hire the best lawyers.

Am I cynical? Yep.

What was the Plaintiff thinking?

[parvenu74]

This should have been a really easy case in which prove a lack of harm to the marketplace: simply copy the GPL software released by IBM, Red Hat, and Novell onto a DVD, write your own label on the disk with a Sharpie (Sam's Software Stack, perhaps?) and then sell it to someone right there in the court room and ask the judge and the defendants if there is anything in the GPL license or the law which makes that act illegal. Case closed.

This isn't obvious

[MobyDisk]

(IANAL)

It sounds like the case didn't deal with the GPL directly. The case dealt with selling software below cost. This is important, because in some states it is illegal to sell commodities below cost. (This was to deal with Wal-mart offering loss-leaders and driving small companies out of business). So it is a valid question to ask: Is it legal to sell software below cost? The court found that unlike commodities, the software industry can thrive with companies offering free software. That makes sense to me.

To put a fine point on this, it has little to do with the GPL (a copyright) since this was not an analysis of copyright. And it had little to do with open-source, since I can sell open-source software. It deals with free (as in beer) software.

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.

Same person that sued FSF

[Dr_Art]

This is the same person that unsuccessfully sued the FSF, also for alleged antitrust reasons.