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:
2007-02-17
Sort of ... depends on what you mean by "use". If you mean just running the code then for FOSS code there are no restrictions. This is all that the vast majority of people and businesses actually just want to do ... run the code.
If you mean copying the source code then that is different. The source code is an original work of the author of the code and hence copying it falls under the regulation of copyright law. The default provision under copyright law is simply that "you may not copy without permission". Permission to make copies must come from the author/owner of the copyright.
Licenses are simply objective evidence of grants of such permission. All licenses have conditions, and are invalidated by breaches of those conditions. If you do not possess a valid license (either because you never obtained one, or because you obtained one but you violated its conditions) ... then you do not have permission to copy the work, and you are subject to the penalties as provided by copyright law.
Nowhere at all does any of the above rely on the exchange of money being involved in the aquisition of the license.
Edited 2008-08-15 05:47 UTC