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Skype Gives Up Anti-GPL Appeal
l2718 writes "Yesterday we discussed Skype's appeal of a German court's ruling against them regarding a violation of the GPL. Harald Welte (the plaintiff) now reports in his blog that following oral argument, Skype decided to drop the appeal and accept the lower court ruling in Weite's favor. More details and analysis at Groklaw. Congratulations to Mr. Welte and GPL-violations.org!"
"To all those who don't like the license: you don't have to use it. Just write your own code. But if you want to use GPL code, the license comes with it. It's a package deal. Thanks."
(which has been oft-said on /.)
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
He's called Harald Welte .
This means that you get to see whatever GPL'd code Skype was using, and if they made changes to that code, they are required to release them as well under the GPL. You don't have access under the GPL to any of their other code that does not meet these conditions.
They took the open moko device and rebranded it as their own which was fair and legal. What they didnt do was make the source code available for those modifications which is required under section 3 of the GPL. They then packeged their item with a link to the source code but that didnt meet the terms of the license as only people with an internet connection can access it (its a skype device so wouldnt they have an internet conenction to A. Order one and B. Use it) They then claimed the GPL license violated anti-trust yesterday before giving up today.
As for how it was discovered i'm not sure. Im guessing that as they complied with the rest of the agreement they left the copyright notice in.
Glorious day
When they supplied a link, it didn't meet the licensing terms because they still didn't notify the receiver of his right to redistribute.
Put identity in the browser.