Delicious Details of Open Source Court Victory

jammag writes "Open source advocate Bruce Perens tells the inside story of the recently concluded Jacobsen v. Katzer court case, in which an open source developer was awarded $100,000. Perens, an expert witness in the case, details the blow by blow, including how developers need to make sure they're using the correct open source license for legal protection. The actual court ruling is almost like some kind of Hollywood movie ending for Open Source, with the judge unequivocally siding with the underfunded open source developer."

Comments

A few corrections to the preface here at Slashdot

[Bruce Perens]

It's actually the appeals court that was sympathetic. Twice. The lower court seems to have had less understanding of the Open Source developer's plight.

Using "the right one": means the right Open Source license. A real key here is getting one that had competent legal help in its drafting. There are a few real duds on the OSI list, including a font license that I swear allows you to convert the font to the public domain. Only the programmers who wrote it don't see it that way.

Sorry about the lack of paragraph breaks. I tend to write too many of them and the editor responded by using too few of them. He might have fixed that and the web cache hasn't been flushed yet.

Re:Precedents?

[Bruce Perens]

It went to appeals court twice and the appeals court ruled both times, then handed the case back to the lower court. The main precedents come from the appeals court.

That's the way it always is. Lower court precedents aren't terribly useful because only that court has to follow them. Appeals court precedents are more valuable, and the appeals courts are more respected as expert jurists so that other courts follow them even if they don't have to.

The precedents are that Open Source licenses can be enforced, and with all of the mechanisms that have been put in place to enforce proprietary licenses, including summary judgement. To get that, we had to show that the Open Source developer has an economic interest in his work even though he isn't paid by legitimate licensed users of the work, and is harmed by an infringer even though he isn't paid.

To you and me it seems odd that anyone had a problem with that idea. But we're inside the revolution.

Model Railroading as an "Open" Hobby

[Katyrnyn]

The outcome of this case is beneficial both for Open Source Software community and the Model Railroading hobby.

In general model railroading is a very open and diverse hobby. Some are better with structural engineering and carpentry, others with electronics, model building, methods of railroad operation, et cetera. As a community we work together to share and improve our techniques, both to improve ourselves as modelers and to increase our satisfaction from the hobby. There are many well established venues for sharing our knowledge, from regular conventions (NMRA National, Regionals, and plenty of Special Interest Groups), a large number of printed an online periodicals, online communities, and just general "how did you..." questions at any old time.

Unfortunately our openness attracts thieves and greedy sorts who are more interested in making a quick buck than improving the hobby, and manufacturers and other entities attacking hobbyists is nothing new. I imagine this greedy nature is present in all hobbies and walks of life, but it seems to be more common now than when I entered the hobby 20 years ago.

Hopefully the outcome of this case will make others that prey on innocent hobbyists think twice.

Thanks, Bruce, for your well-written summary of the case. I'd mod your article up +1: Insightful if the Internet gave out mod points.