GPL remains strong and stable
Good news, everyone! US court rules that GNU General Public Licence can be enforced as a licence and a contract.
Since Richard Stallman released the first version of the GNU General Public Licence (GPL) back in 1989, the licence has been a linchpin of open source’s success, by guaranteeing that end users are free to run, study, share and modify any software that comes with the licence.
In 2008, a case in the US appeals court (Jacobsen vs Katzer) reiterated that open source license conditions are enforceable as a copyright condition. Basically, the GPL is a licence that depends on copyright law for enforcement, and that it was a copyright licence − not a contract. You can read more about this ruling in an in-depth article at http://bit.ly/2rWiVkx.
Now, a new ruling (Artifex vs Hancom) clarifies the legal basis of the GPL. This case came to be when Artifex Software, the company that owned Ghostscript and provided a dual-licencing method where people could use the interpreter for the PostScript language under the GNU GPL, or using a conventional proprietary licence, discovered that Hancom, a South Korean company, was using Ghostscript without either type of licence.
Artifex took legal action, alleging copyright infringement and breach of contract, which Hancom denied. However, the court ruled that the GNU GPL is a contract. The court also upheld the result of the Jacobsen vs Katzer case, which means the GNU GPL is also a licence, and damages could still be awarded.
With Artifex now able to proceed with its case against Hancom, the legal position on the GPL has been made much clearer – which could have ramifications for other contracts that relate to free software. We shall be keeping an eye on this.