French lawsuit for non-compliance with GPL license won

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    An unprecedented decision in its history was made last week by the French Themis. The Paris Court of Appeal found Edu4 guilty of violating the GNU GPL free license. Edu4 distributed binary assemblies of software for remote desktop management based on the VNC project without providing users with access to the source codes and intentionally removing from the program all references to its free origin. The lawsuit was filed by the French Professional Education Association (AFPA).

    In an appeal, Olivier Hugot, lawyer for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) branch in France, said the court’s decision should force companies to take more seriously the issue of compliance with free licenses. "Free software companies have received yet another reminder that not complying with the terms of these licenses is a crime under French law."

    The roots of this story go back to the beginning of 2000, when AFPA signed a contract with Edu4 for the supply of computer-class equipment. Some time later, it was found out that VNC software was installed on computers, the source texts of its version of which Edu4 categorically refused to publish. After conducting the necessary checks, to which the FSF has already joined, in 2002 a lawsuit was filed to protect the rights of developers and open source codes.

    According to Loic Dachary, president of the French branch of FSF, the uniqueness of the decision is, among other things, that the lawsuit was filed not by the developers themselves, but by ordinary users. “This is a fairly common misconception that only the software owner can assert his rights,” said Mr. Dachary. By its decision, the court showed all the inconsistency of the existence of such an opinion.


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