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[Werner Koch]

On Wed, 22 Aug 2001 21:57:10 +0200 (MET DST), Johan Wevers said:

> A negligible chance IMO. Probably just as negligible that Ascom would go
> after private users of IDEA who also use it for their buissiness mails.

BTW, ascoms also requires a license from you if you use therei
algorithm on a machine which you also youse for business.  And
buisiness is a lot for them: even voluntary work for a charity.

> Is there any known case where the GNU copyright was tested in court against
> an individual user who broke the terms? Like, say, a shareware author who
> linked against a GPL (not LGPL) library? Or even against a company?

There are lot of cases where companies changed their conditions
(either by making their software free or by not using the GPLed parts
anymore).  It is obvious that their lawyers told them that they won't
have a chance in court.  The FSF does not publish these cases for good
reasons.  However, one cae is well known: NeXT used gcc to build their
Objective-C compiler thereby infringing the GPL - eventually they made
the Obj-C fronted free and furthermore assigned it to the FSF.

> On a personal note, I agree with you that copyrights are wrong. But using
> the same copyright law to ensure open source is IMO only one of the possible
> actions to take to undermine it. Constantly breaking it and getting away
> with it is another way to show the futility of the current copyright laws.

You might want to ask Dimitri on his opinion about such attempts ;-)


   Werner

-- 
Werner Koch        Omnis enim res, quae dando non deficit, dum habetur
g10 Code GmbH      et non datur, nondum habetur, quomodo habenda est.
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