Submitted by 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.GPL-violation.org’s Harald Welte revealed the move in a blog post. He explained that despite the court suggesting the two parties find middle ground, gpl-violations.org would settle for nothing less but full GPL compliance. The blog post reads:
The various arguments by Skype supporting their claim that the GPL is violating German anti-trust legislation as well as further claims aiming at the GPL being invalid or incompatible with German legislation were not further analyzed by the court. The court stated that there was not enough arguments and material brought forward by Skype to support such a claim.
According to Welte, the court hinted twice that if it would come to a judgement, Skype’s chances of winning would be minimal. Skype asked for a short break, and when they returned, they withdrew their appeal, meaning the original court decision still stands. Welte writes: “we have successfully won what has probably been the most lengthy and time consuming case so far.”
I had a look at the people who brought the case
Its not 100% clear where any damages/money go to should they win….
I dont trust that…
It wasn’t a case brought on to win money, all they sought was compliance with the licence the code was licensed under (GPL).
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
you seem confused. there is no “money won”, because they are not suing for damages, they are suing for compliance and a ‘cease and desist’ until conditions have been met.
should the actual copyright holders want to sue for damages then they would have to prove that they have lost money due to the gpl violation, and if they would do so then naturally any money awarded would go to the copyright holders since they would be the plaintiff.
is it clear now?
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
Skype-“But the GLP is an invalid license because it violates antitrust regulation.”
Judge-“So you’re just illegally shipping copyrighted code then?”
Skype-“Yeah… about that appeal, nevermind”.
Edited 2008-05-09 14:21 UTC
Hehe… more or less, what probably happened!
I think they wanted to declare /part/ of the license terms invalid, otherwise yeah, it would have been a very dumb move
But that doesn’t work. If you succeed in getting the GPL declared invalid, and you ship GPL code, you’re still screwed. Without the GPL, you have no agreement with the copyright holder that allows you to distribute or modify the code, so you still have to take your product off the market.
The judge in the case said that if an author demands that a publisher publish his work in a green envelope, then the publisher has to either use a green envelope, or not publish, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s a stupid condition.
I’d have liked to have seen this take place in an American court. Seems like a decentish place to start a precedent
What’s the hurry? I’m quite content to see one company after another voluntarily comply. A more serious problem , I should think, would be those companies who violate the licensing and go undetected.
Edited 2008-05-09 15:10 UTC
Agreed.
Once again, I’ll state the simple facts – if you don’t like the GPL code, then don’t use our GPL software. This is really why I want GPL v3 pushed, it *protects* that code from abuse even better than GPL v2 does (which doesn’t do a bad job of it I do admit).
Dave
You gotta be a real sucker to don’t understand the GPL license or a real sucker to try to use in a closed sourced project with such magnitude as skype and get away with it.
I still don’t get it- what they (GPL) won? With those cases GPL won’t help any commercial vendor to contribute code to this viral license.
Antik, you do everything you can to stir up license wars. Hey people, let’s just ignore this flamebait and have an interesting and constructive discussion instead. Disagreement is the basis for a good conversation, but license flames are just a waste of time, and generate all sorts of unnecessary bad blood.
GPL is not enforced to make someone rich, it is enforced to make sure you give back to the community if you modify the code. Nobody forces you to use GPL code, you can always write your own. But if you improve the code, you give it back to the community, then someone else improves the code and everybody benefits, including the users that get low cost or free applications.
Huh?!? Viral license? Did Steven Ballmer perhaps hit you too hard with a chair that you can’t think straight anymore? The GPL license is a respectable and very well-liked license by many (including Fortune 500 corporations), and it has brought lots of improvements and progress to big and important projects which wouldn’t be where they are today without the GPL. Those who oppose it simply use their own license for their own products, so I fail to see what the problem is.
I know I shouldn’t reply to the troll … but it is worth mentioning anyway.
It wasn’t Skype’s code to begin with. The GPL applied to that code before Skype used it in a product, and it still applies to the same code after this case.
Hence, the GPL isn’t viral.
Note: A copy of the GPL license is required with the software, but a copy of the source code is not.
Edited 2008-05-10 02:51 UTC
Well more or less. The source code must be available to the one who owns the program, and for free, or at least not more expensive than the shipping cost.
Actually, I think the GPL requires that the source code must be made available to anyone who asks for it, and for no cost other than reasonable costs of reproduction and/or mailing.