Munich Court Again Enforces GPL

BrianWCarver writes "Despite earlier concerns reported on Slashdot that the GPL might be particularly difficult to enforce in Germany, that country's courts now hold the distinction of having enforced it twice. The first enforcement came in 2004 when Harald Welte of the netfilter/iptables core team sought to enjoin Sitecom from distributing its WL-122 router, which used netfilter's GPL'd code, without also providing the source code and a copy of the GPL, as that license requires. The Munich Court granted Welte a preliminary injunction and then upheld that injunction (Court's decision in English pdf) and now Sitecom provides the source code from their website. Welte, who also now runs gpl-violations.org to track GPL violations, and who personally handed over warning letters at Cebit to companies not in compliance with the GPL, reported on his blog today that he has obtained a new preliminary injunction enforcing the GPL, this time against Fortinet for distributing their firewall products (FortiGate and FortiWiFi) that include GPL'd code while Fortinet refuses to release the source. Congratulations again to Welte and his attorneys!"

Wait a second...

[selectspec]

Congratulations again to Welte and his attorneys!.

I'm all for GPL enforcement, but I'd just assume eat a copy of Windows XP before I'll congratulate an attorney.

I used to live in Munich!

[debilo]

Mod me up!!

Reason /. is so slow

[doublem]

The story doesn't get posted on /. until someone is willing to trade sexual favors in exchange for getting their article published. As a result, there'll always be some lag time between when a story breaks and when it gets posted.

First, someone needs to notice it, and get emotionally involved.

Next, someone needs to care enough to trade sexual favors.

Then, someone actually has to shag one of the /. editors. (I hear this is the shortest step, and actually adds very little in terms of lag time)

Finally, the article gets posted for all the /. readers to enjoy.

*pop* goes the brain

[doublem]

But, but, I thought Lawyers were BAD.

Here they did something GOOD.

*head explodes*

I live in Munich!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod me up too!!

I've been to Munich!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod me up, too!!

I got drunk in Munich!

[MisanthropicProgram]

Mod me up too!

Re:Damn pro-business GPL haters

[hacksoncode]

So you're saying it's anti-business, right?

Re:I used to live in Munich!

[coopex]

I have a tshirt from Munich!
Mod me up!

Re:So, basically

[End11]

Whatever the lawyers are, I don't think they're "idiots"; let's remember that they're the ones getting rich here.