Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 9th May 2008 13:19 UTC, submitted by Moulinneuf
In July of 2007, Skype lost a court case over their failure to include a copy of the GPL in their WSKP100 VoIP phone - it ran Linux, GPL software, which means a copy of the GPL license must be included. The case was started by the gpl-violations.org group. Skype decided to appeal against the decision, but it has decided to withdraw that appeal.
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Member since:
2007-02-17
and if money IS won, where does it go?
That I can see they are not even a registered charity..
If I am wrong, please show me a link proving otherwise "
In all copyright cases ... any funds are due to the holders of the copyrights.
Normally, this is the authors of the code ... unless the authors have transferred (in writing) the copyrights to someone else.
Software is just like a book ... if you write it, then as the author you enjoy the copyrights.
If you didn't write it and you publish it to make some money for yourself ... then you had better have the author's permission or you are in all sorts of legal trouble if you don't.
In this case, the authors permission is readily given ... as long as you give out the source code with the product when you distribute it. Without giving out the source code ... you have no permission to distribute from the authors.
PS: Open source software is more like a book than normal software. If you reprint a book without the copyright holder's permission, then you are in trouble ... even though the text of the book itself is out there in the open (in bookstores) for anyone to read or buy a copy.
PPS: In fact, you must publish something in order to have a copyright on it. In the case of proprietary software, the source code is not published, so it cannot have copyrights. Therefore, it is illegal only to copy the binary executable without the copyright holder's permission in that case.
Edited 2008-05-12 10:51 UTC