German court grants injunction against GPL infringement [ip]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [Fwd: [EDRi-forum] Preliminary Injunction for GPL Infringement 
Granted  byGerman Court]
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 12:46:35 +0200
From: Ralf Bendrath <bendrath () zedat fu-berlin de>
Reply-To: bendrath () zedat fu-berlin de
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

Something for Politech?
R.

[forwards snipped. --DBM]

> From http://www.netfilter.org/news/2004-04-15-sitecom-gpl.html


Of interest to editors and journalists covering:
Linux, Free Software, Open Source, Copyright Law

MUNICH COURT GRANTS PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION FOR INFRINGING USE OF GPL
LICENSED SOFTWARE

BERLIN, Germany - Apr. 14, 2004 -- The Munich district court granted a
preliminary injuction against Sitecom Germany GmbH
(http://www.sitecom.com/). This injunctive relieve has been applied by
the
netfilter/iptables project (http://www.netfilter.org/).

Sitecom is offering a wireless access router product (WL-122) based on
software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL), developed
by
the netfilter/iptables project.

The GNU GPL is a license commonly used for many free software projects,
such
as the Linux Operating System Kernel.  The GPL licenses software free of
cost, but requires any redistributor to provide the full source code.

According to the court order, Sitecom did not fulfill the obligations
imposed by the GNU General Public License covering the
netfilter/iptables
software. In particular, Sitecom did not make any source code offering
or
include the GPL license terms with their products.

Following a warning notice, Sitecom refused to sign a declaration to
cease
and desist. Thus, the netfilter/iptables project was compelled to ask
the
court for a preliminnary injuction, banning Sitecom from distributing
its
product, unless Sitecom complies with all obligations imposed by the GNU
GPL.

"To my knowledge, this is the first case in which a judicial decision
has
been decreed on the applicability and the validity of the GNU GPL", says
Dr.
Till Jaeger, partner of the Berlin and Munich based law firm JBB
Rechtsanwaelte (http://www.jbb.de/) that represented the
netfilter/iptables
project in the litigation.

This preliminary injunction follows a series of out-of-court settlement
agreements that the netfilter/iptables project has concluded within a
short
period of time. When asked about the reasons for the sudden rise in
legal
pressure for GPL compliance, Harald Welte, Chairman of the Netfilter
Core
Team states:

"We are not in any way opposing the commercial use of free and open
source
software. Specifically, there is no legal risk of using GPL licensed
software in commercial products.  But vendors have to comply with the
license terms, just like they would have to with any other, even
proprietary
software license agreement."


About the netfilter/iptables project

The netfilter/iptables project provides state-of-the-art network
security
software for Linux firewalling, packet filter and network address
translation (NAT), distributed as Free Software under the terms of the
GNU
General Public License.  Being part of the linux operating system
kernel,
the software is running on virtually every Linux installation.

For more information on the project or the software, visit
http://www.netfilter.org/


Media contact:
netfilter core team
Harald Welte
Phone: +49-30-24033902
Email: laforge () netfilter org

_______________________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)