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Court Allows Case Over Violating Open Source License (lexology.com)
Slashdot reader destinyland writes: The District Court for the Northern District of California recently issued an opinion that is being hailed as a victory for open source software. In this case, the court denied a motion to dismiss a lawsuit alleging violation of an open source software license, paving the way for further action enforcing the conditions of the GNU General Public License... As part of its motion to dismiss, Hancom argued that using open source code offered under open source licensing terms does not form a contract... The District Court ruled that Artifex's breach of contract claim could proceed, finding that the GPL, by its express terms, requires that third parties agree to the GPL's obligations if they distribute the open-source-licensed software [and] concluded that royalty-free licensing under open source conditions does not preclude a claim for damages...
In denying a motion to dismiss, the District Court only holds that the claims may proceed on the theories enunciated by Artifex, not necessarily that they will ultimately succeed. Still, the case represents a significant step forward for open source plaintiffs... In the past decade, while enforcement of open source licensing violations has become more common, few enforcement cases result in published law. The open source community will be watching this case carefully, and this initial decision vindicates the rights of the open source authors to enforce GPL terms on both breach of contract and copyright theories.
In denying a motion to dismiss, the District Court only holds that the claims may proceed on the theories enunciated by Artifex, not necessarily that they will ultimately succeed. Still, the case represents a significant step forward for open source plaintiffs... In the past decade, while enforcement of open source licensing violations has become more common, few enforcement cases result in published law. The open source community will be watching this case carefully, and this initial decision vindicates the rights of the open source authors to enforce GPL terms on both breach of contract and copyright theories.
I don't think you'll find closed-source software vendors to be any happier than your average Stallmanite when you breach their license agreement.
The GPL governs distribution, whereas EULAs govern use. Two different things.
(except to nutters such as BSD advocates.)
If they had been able to dismiss it successfully, would that have set a legal precedent?
It would have set precedent within this court's jurisdiction, which would have had a powerful impact, since it encompasses Silicon Valley, San Francisco, and all of coastal California from Monterey to the Oregon border.
It would not have set binding precedent in other jurisdictions, but other courts would still tend to tilt toward an established ruling.
TL;DR: If it had gone the other way, it would have been really bad.
Oh it's very easy. X lines of code, which typically costs Y per thousand lines to develop on the high end. Their prior commercial licenses, or costs of licenses of compatible software as the low end.
I think you're shouting into the wind with this. The ship has sailed. Everyone knows what "Open source" means in this context. "Free Software" is a more obscure term that hasn't really caught on.
Stallman's argument "that the open source effort is a corporate reactionary counter to software freedom" is something most users don't care about. They're perfectly happy to use a proprietry solution if they have to. The benefit of Free software is the price, not the freedom.
Either that or we respect Stallman for his contributions, but not to the degree that we are going to allow him to dictate our language.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun