Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Thursday 22 November 2007, 2:34 PM
How important is GPL enforcement?
On one level, the activity of the Software Freedom Law Center seems a bit perverse.
It has now taken three companies to court for not obeying the GPL licence, a role in which they follow the well known campaign of Harald Welte, who has forced companies like Skype to comply with the rules, and make source code available to their customers.
The end result of Welte's efforts tends to be a download page where a vendor, caught red-handed not distributing source code, makes that code available to customers that have bought, say a Skype phone. It's an offer that I don't imagine many people take up.
But there is a principle here. The original software has been given for free, and any developments to that software should also be given away - and that means publishing the source.
That's something the Center spells out.
What feels odd is the sight of a law firm going to court with a licence complaint - not trying to restrict the distribution of something, but trying to enforce its wider distribution.
It has now taken three companies to court for not obeying the GPL licence, a role in which they follow the well known campaign of Harald Welte, who has forced companies like Skype to comply with the rules, and make source code available to their customers.
The end result of Welte's efforts tends to be a download page where a vendor, caught red-handed not distributing source code, makes that code available to customers that have bought, say a Skype phone. It's an offer that I don't imagine many people take up.
But there is a principle here. The original software has been given for free, and any developments to that software should also be given away - and that means publishing the source.
That's something the Center spells out.
What feels odd is the sight of a law firm going to court with a licence complaint - not trying to restrict the distribution of something, but trying to enforce its wider distribution.
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