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Linux Developer McHardy Drops GPLv2 'Shake Down' Case (zdnet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the not-making-your-case dept.

Former Linux developer Patrick McHardy dropped his Gnu General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) violation case against Geniatech in a German court this week. ZDNet explains why some consider this a big "win": People who find violations typically turn to organizations such as the Free Software Foundation, Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC), and the Software Freedom Law Center to approach violators. These organizations then try to convince violating companies to mend their ways and honor their GPLv2 legal requirements. Only as a last resort do they take companies to court to force them into compliance with the GPLv2. Patrick McHardy, however, after talking with SFC, dropped out from this diplomatic approach and has gone on his own way. Specifically, McHardy has been accused of seeking his own financial gain by approaching numerous companies in German courts. Geniatech claimed McHardy has sued companies for Linux GPLv2 violations in over 38 cases. In one, he'd requested a contractual penalty of €1.8 million. The company also claimed McHardy had already received over €2 million from his actions...

In July 2016, the Netfilter developers suspended him from the core team. They received numerous allegations that he had been shaking down companies. McHardy refused to discuss these issues with them, and he refused to sign off on the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement. In October 2017, Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel maintainer for the stable branch, summed up the Linux kernel developers' position. Kroah-Hartman wrote: "McHardy has sought to enforce his copyright claims in secret and for large sums of money by threatening or engaging in litigation...."

Had McHardy continued on his way, companies would have been more reluctant to use Linux code in their products for fear that a single, unprincipled developer could sue them and demand payment for his copyrighted contributions... McHardy now has to bear all legal costs for both sides of the case. In other words, when McHardy was faced with serious and costly opposition for the first time, he waved a white flag rather than face near certain defeat in the courts.

5 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. FOSS troll? by Sebby · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So if some companies are patent trolls, does this make him a FOSS troll?

    Glad he's "out" because his actions definitively didn't reflect the goals of open source software.

    --

    AC comments get piped to /dev/null
    1. Re:FOSS troll? by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "his actions definitively didn't reflect the goals of open source software."

      And not providing source simultaneously with a distribution is?

      To support the "goals of open source software", which by its very definition is that the source be open, some organizations should be forced to pay up the wazoo.

      I'm thinking specifically of one major manufacturer of Android phones which has a penchant for not releasing the required Linux kernel source for months after they start selling a product. But, the penalty doesn't need to be financial. If you read the GPL, a violation can prevent them from using Linux ever again. That threat should wake them into compliance. Paying a few million to a single developer to keep a multi-billion dollar revenue stream from stopping dead seems like chump change.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  2. Richard Stallman by countach · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is why Richard Stallman insists on signing over copyright to the FSF before taking your code. It always seemed legally very messy that Linux was in the legal hands of thousands of separate developers. This is why that is a bad idea.

    1. Re:Richard Stallman by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except that the FSF could then do anything with the code, including change the license to a proprietary license if they wished. Yes, all already released versions would stay GPL, but future versions could be any license they wished.

      One example is moving the code to GPLv3 while lots of developers still prefer GPLv2.

      Except that Stallman foresaw that and the assignment agreement that the FSF provides ensures that they have to continue to release the software under similar terms to the ones it's currently released under. It's always amazing how much thought the Free Software Foundation have put into things and how often they turn out to be right with exactly the things they are criticised for. I'd guess many of us will end up wishing we had adopted the AGPLv3 in a few years time.

  3. Making companiies think twice... by WorBlux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    before violating the GPL? Good, it's not like the GPL is some archiac EULA wrapped up in impenetrable legalese. I'm Fucking sick and tired of companies ignoring the GPL and launching crap products that are, or will soon be out of date, full of security holes, and a threat to the rest of us online. Linux is now the go-to OS in every 32 or 64 bit architecture outside of the desktop space, I'm much more worried about un-servicable crap being released than I'm worried about market-share.