Source for the goose should be source for the gander
Jamie Boyle’s sensible defence of open-source software starts in a disarming way, by suggesting that the Federal Circuit’s decision in Jacobsen v Katzer, which upheld the validity of an open-source copyright claim, was one of those dry-as-dust decisions that only intellectual property geeks could love. But, as he quickly points out, the decision is not just about model trains and the computer systems that control them. It is rather about the ways in which new technology is distributed from their creators to, well, just about everyone else.
Here, as in so many cases, the choice of remedy matters as much as the nature of the violation. The defendants conceded that they did not observe the conditions of the licence, including publication of the names of the original authors of the software program. But their attitude was “no big deal”, because the fanciers of open source could not prove that they suffered harm from this violation. They plumped for letting the plaintiffs get only a breach of contract remedy, one that carried with it no provable damages.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 1093 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Recent comments
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago