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German Court Convicts Skype For Breaching GPL

Posted by kdawson on from the means-what-it-says dept.

terber writes "A German court has once again upheld the GPLv2 and convicted Skype (based in Luxembourg) of violating the GPL by selling the Linux-based VoIP phone 'SMCWSKP 100' without proper source code access. (Original is in German, link is a Google translation.) Skype later added a flyer to the phones' packaging giving a URL where the sources could be obtained; but the court found this insufficient and in breach of GPL section 3. The plaintiff was once again Netfilter developer Harald Welte, who runs gpl-violations.org. The decision is available in German at www.ifross.de (Google translation here)."

5 of 309 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot Hypocrisy by jbf · · Score: -1, Troll

    Now we will see the same people who oppose RIAA/MPAA copyrights cheering the copyright action that enforces open source. Don't you see that you can't have it both ways?

  2. I'm confused... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Skype is good, GPL is good, copyright bad...

    Who are with on this one guys?

  3. Conflict and Chaos in the MrChaotic Mind! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    "In other words, usually when people violate copyright it's through an act that increases the spread of the information, and prosecuting them for it would restict that spread."

    But by not rewarding people, you don't have any information to spread.

    "In contrast, when people violate copyright by failing to abide by the GPL, they themselves are restricting the spread of the information and prosecuting them restores it."

    Well that certainly turns the BSD vs GPL argument on it's head.

  4. Re:Conflict and Chaos in the Hive Mind! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    How about we spread your social security number, credit reports and medical record around then?

    Infomation want to be free!

  5. Re:Damn by Ohreally_factor · · Score: -1, Troll

    It's not a conviction unless a contract/license violation is considered a crime in Germany. They simply lost the civil case and were found in violation. That's pretty much it. Hopefully we'll see more lawsuits against other companies such as TiVO.

    Hopefully there's some monetary reward in this and that it will teach Skype and others a big lesson. Tivo hasn't violated their license. Where did you get the idea that Tivo did any such thing? Tivo has complied from day one with GPL 2. Don't be freetarded and don't repeat FHF (Free Hardware Foundation, now that they've changed their mission) misinformation.
    --
    It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.