Re: GPL upheld on appeal in France

[David Kastrup]

Alexander Terekhov <terekhov@web.de> writes:

> Some details about the ruling from folks who can read French. 
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/353967/

[...]

> Parent article: GPL upheld in France 
>
> I quickly read the ruling. Here a quick summary: The "standing to sue"
> issue has not been addressed. The court appointed an expert to look at
> the software and he found that: 
>
> - the software (VNC) has been modified to hide the true copyright
> holders, thus it is counterfeit.

[...]

> How is that supposed to be a "GPL victory" know only brainwashed
> GNUtians...

Well, it makes more sense if this has not been about copyright per se
(since then the question of "standing" would be quite more puzzling).

It would not seem like a particularly important "victory".  It
established that treating GPL software as essentially public domain is a
crime, namely that we are talking about copyright claims that are
neither yielded nor forfeited.

We have some trolls here who rant about the "illegal/invalid GPL" all
the time, and this particular verdict is some evidence just how serious
this has to be taken in reality.  Since a certain Daniel Wallace
actually believed in this sort of nonsense enough to do to court (with
some applause and huzzahs from the pebble galleries), this may be sort
of surprising for some people.

But I agree that it does not seem to be of much importance or
precedence.  Pretty little in connection with GPL court cases is, since
they pretty fast boil down to "is there something like copyright at
all?", and that is not relevant to the GPL per se.

-- 
David Kastrup