Linked by Amjith Ramanujam on Thu 14th Aug 2008 19:00 UTC, submitted by Moulinneuf
A federal appeals court has overruled a lower court ruling that, if sustained, would have severely hampered the enforceability of free software licenses. The lower court had found that redistributing software in violation of the terms of a free software license could constitute a breach of contract, but was not copyright infringement. The difference matters because copyright law affords much stronger remedies against infringement than does contract law. If allowed to stand, the decision could have neutered popular copyleft licenses such as the GPL and Creative Commons licenses. The district court decision was overturned on Wednesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
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Member since:
2007-07-13
You say you wouldn't let Microsoft using the software? This is against the spirit of the Free Software Foundation. They say that anyone can use Free Software without restriction provided they observe the four fundamental software freedoms, even Microsoft. I know because I heard Richard Stallman talk (twice) on this yesterday.
To think the enemy is Microsoft is wrong. It is anyone who would remove the four fundamental software freedoms from anyone else. This include us free software lovers too if we are not careful! That is what makes us ethically different from Microsoft. If they gained enlightenment and truly respected software (and user) freedom then we should welcome them. Unfortunately, this is probably not in their corporate DNA (although individual Microsofties seem able to grok it).