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Software Freedom Conservancy Wins GPL Case Against Westinghouse

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the do-the-dance-of-joy dept.

fishthegeek writes "The Software Freedom Conservancy has received a judgement against Westinghouse Digital Electronics for $90,000 in damages, $50,000 in costs plus a donation of all of the offending HDTV's that were using BusyBox in violation of the GPL. Given that WDE is nearly bankrupt it's likely that most if not all of the cash will disappear in a legal 'poof,' but it is a victory regardless."

2 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Not what it seems by ledow · · Score: 5, Informative

    As has been discussed in the million other websites that jumped on this news earlier in the week:

    It wasn't so much a win as a "no contest":
    - The company that's gone bankrupt, went bankrupt (in a real, non-SCO fashion) and couldn't have afforded to fight the case.
    - The people handling the bankruptcy don't want the lawyers who were working the case representing them any more (presumably they stopped paying them).
    - The lawyers handling the case stopped defending it because they were asked not to provide any further representation.

    In many senses it was a "win by default" - it was unchallenged, they couldn't afford to challenge it, and they were bankrupt anyway. In terms of legal precedent, this is like saying "I *do* own an acre of the moon because I presented it in a case against NASA and NASA went bankrupt before they could file any defence whatsoever" and then using this as a legal precedent that everyone with the same paper as you owns an acre of the moon. It's not a "win", it's not even a "loss", it's just a "nothing" in legal terms.

  2. The EFF was not involved by bkuhn · · Score: 5, Informative

    I cannot figure out why the headline says that the EFF won this case. This case was brought by the Software Freedom Conservancy, with the Software Freedom Law Center acting as the Conservancy's legal counsel. The EFF was not, nor has ever been to my knowledge, involved in anything to do with the GPL.

    Also, winning the whole case is probably inaccurate. What's been achieved here is a permanent injunction and judgment against one of the violators. Thus, the case against Westinghouse has been won, but there are other defendants in the case as well.

    — bkuhn, President, Software Freedom Conservancy