[OT] German court says the GPL is effective

[OT] German court says the GPL is effective

[Adrian Bunk]

I know this is off-topic, but a court in my home town Munich has decided 
that a cease and desist letter Harald Welte sent to a router producer 
(Sitecom) who used netfilter/iptables in his router but didn't publish 
the sources of the firmware with a penalty of up to 100 000 Euro is  
valid (a German version of the decision of the three judges is at [1]).

It's quite nice to hear that a court has decided that the GPL is 
enforceable under German law.

cu
Adrian

[1] http://www.jbb.de/urteil_lg_muenchen_gpl.pdf

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

Re: [OT] German court says the GPL is effective

[Prakash K. Cheemplavam]

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Adrian Bunk wrote:
[snip]

| It's quite nice to hear that a court has decided that the GPL is
| enforceable under German law.

| [1] http://www.jbb.de/urteil_lg_muenchen_gpl.pdf
|

Well, actually I am not sure whether it says it. Unfortunately I don't
know the English terms. As far as I have understood it: This was just a
"quick" decision making, a "real" court case comes later. So far the
court finds it reasonable to enforce the cease and desist letter until
the final decision comes, as the "probability" is high, that the GPL is
compatible with German laws and even if not, the company wouldn't be
allowed to use the GPLed software.

bye,

Prakash
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Re: [OT] German court says the GPL is effective

[Matthias Andree]

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004, Adrian Bunk wrote:

> I know this is off-topic, but a court in my home town Munich has decided 
> that a cease and desist letter Harald Welte sent to a router producer 
> (Sitecom) who used netfilter/iptables in his router but didn't publish 
> the sources of the firmware with a penalty of up to 100 000 Euro is  
> valid (a German version of the decision of the three judges is at [1]).
> 
> It's quite nice to hear that a court has decided that the GPL is 
> enforceable under German law.
> 
> [1] http://www.jbb.de/urteil_lg_muenchen_gpl.pdf

Has this verdict become final yet?

-- 
Matthias Andree

Encrypted mail welcome: my GnuPG key ID is 0x052E7D95 (PGP/MIME preferred)

Re: [OT] German court says the GPL is effective

[Adrian Bunk]

On Sat, Jul 24, 2004 at 12:28:25AM +0200, Matthias Andree wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jul 2004, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> 
> > I know this is off-topic, but a court in my home town Munich has decided 
> > that a cease and desist letter Harald Welte sent to a router producer 
> > (Sitecom) who used netfilter/iptables in his router but didn't publish 
> > the sources of the firmware with a penalty of up to 100 000 Euro is  
> > valid (a German version of the decision of the three judges is at [1]).
> > 
> > It's quite nice to hear that a court has decided that the GPL is 
> > enforceable under German law.
> > 
> > [1] http://www.jbb.de/urteil_lg_muenchen_gpl.pdf
> 
> Has this verdict become final yet?

No, it's not yet final.

> Matthias Andree

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed