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German court says the GPL is effective

OT Adrian Bunk 3 participants 4 messages Jul 23, 2004 – Jul 29, 2004

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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

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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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In reply to Adrian Bunk
Quoted 10 lines · 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.

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

Has this verdict become final yet?

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Matthias Andree

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Quoted 8 lines · Matthias Andree
Quoted 6 lines · 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]).

Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 4 lines

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.

Quoted 1 line

Matthias Andree

cu
Adrian

Signature · 4 lines
       "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