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The GPLv2 Goes To Court

Posted by samzenpus on from the laying-down-the-law dept.

Jason Baker writes Despite its importance, the GPLv2 has been the subject of very few court decisions, and virtually all of the most important terms of the GPLv2 have not been interpreted by courts. This lack of court decisions is about to change due to the five interrelated cases arising from a dispute between Versata Software, Inc. and Ameriprise Financial, Inc.. These cases are dealing with four important terms in the GPLv2: 1) What are the remedies for breach of the terms of the GPLv2? 2) What is a "distribution" under the GPLv2 that triggers the obligations under the GPLv2? 3) Does the GPLv2 include a patent license? 4) What type of integration between proprietary code and GPLv2 licensed code will result in creating a "derivative work" and subject such proprietary code to the terms of the GPLv2?

3 of 173 comments (clear)

  1. Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, no, no. What they should have done is submitted it to Slashdot and read the posts to find out what the GPL means and what they should do.

  2. Work visas by tepples · · Score: 4, Funny

    software patents are not legal in most parts of the world. so, why should I careas world citizen?

    Because if the U.S. legislature and courts make software engineering impractical, your country will end up with a lot of skilled U.S. citizens applying for work visas.

  3. Re:If only PJ was still running groklaw! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Not silly for him/her, because it could have exposed him/her as the paid IBM shill that he/she was.