First legal test for GPL (common open source license)
September 21, 2007
The GNU General Public License (GPL) is going to be testing in a U.S. court for the first time in its history. The Software Freedom Law Center is suing Monsoon on behalf of BusyBox. Monsoon admits they use BusyBox’s source code, but they do not provide users with access to the underlying source code as required by the GPL. Eben Moglen, Founding Director of the SFLC, explains:
"Free software licenses such as the GPL exist to protect the freedom of computer users. If we don’t ensure that these licenses are respected, then they will not be able to achieve their goal. Our goal is simply to ensure that Monsoon Multimedia complies with the terms of the GPL.
The lawsuit is styled, "Erik Andersen and Rob Landley V. Monsoon Multimedia Inc." Case No. 07-CV-8205 US District Court for the Southern District of New York. It will be interesting to see how this case plays out. Stay tuned. [via]
