[ILUG] Re: court cases involving the gpl...

[kevin lyda]

On Fri, Mar 22, 2002 at 02:01:20PM +0000, Richard Poynder wrote:
> Thanks for the note. Is not the important distinction between disputes over 

thanks for the prompt reply.

> proprietary software licences and open source licences that in the case of 
> open source software it is difficult to prove financial loss? If  a 
> proprietary software company successfully proves infringement then it can 
> ask the courts for damages for all the potential loss of sales/revenue 

well, there are other legal remedies.  in the mysql case one party (i'm
not certain of the players) was blocked from distributing their product.

regardless it is rare.

your article reprinted in the irish times discussed the financial risks
and exposure from using software licensed under the gpl.  you did present
a number of opinions, which i appreciate, but you didn't present the
context which i think is unfortunate.

the net and the ease at which creative works can be copied and distributed
is a concern to a wide range of people.  those groups have come up with a
variety of solutions.  the riaa and mpaa have brought a host of lawsuits,
lobied for the dmca, and are now trying to force computer manufaturers
to enforce their licenses.  closed source software companies have also
lobbied and influenced legislation like the dmca, ucita and software
patent law in europe.  in addition they formed the bsa which tries to
enforce their licenses.  this forces many companies to dedicate staff
members to license audits in order to comply with bsa audits - facing
"fines" if they fail to comply.

and while most of the laws i mention are confined to the united states,
similar laws (or in the case of the dmca, international treaties) have
been enacted or are in the pipeline to be legislated around the world.

those actions have real financial impact to companies across the globe
- even companies whose primary business is not related to computers or
the internet.

that's the context the gpl lives in.  i do think companies should
understand the gpl if they are using software under its license.  for some
companies it might remove the possibility of using it.  however they
should also understand what the alternatives offer.  it's my experience
that companies are *not* well educated on *any* software licenses and
that they routinely violate those licenses.  a company's financial risk
is not reduced by installing a single copy of visual c++ across a few
dozen developer workstations in lieu of gcc.

kevin

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