Judge Agrees: Just Because You Dislike Open Source, Doesn't Make It Illegal
from the in-case-you-were-wondering dept
About a year ago, we noted a bizarre lawsuit by someone claiming that the concept of the GPL (General Public License) was a violation of anti-trust law as it was illegal price fixing that made it impossible to compete. It seemed laughable at the time, and it appears that a judge has agreed, throwing out the case and making the guy pay the legal fees of the Free Software Foundation for its troubles (found via Digg). The judge dismissed the case because the plaintiff completely failed to show specific anti-trust related injury as resulting from the GPL -- which suggests others could still go after the GPL under the same argument if they could present a better case. However, it still seems fairly ridiculous, since the GPL is simply a license choice. In fact, the judge even noted: "the GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation." Just because something is given away free, it doesn't automatically make it anti-competitive. In many cases, it's actually much more competitive. It just means that the business model may be different or non-existent.
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Ha
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the redistribution rights in the GPL allow competi
Since my clients aren't going to be software companies making the same tools I am, they aren't going to be competing with me, so giving them the source isn't a masive risk for me.
My clients not only get the source code, they also have the fact that you're still around to use as leverage against me when negotiating their contract. Not as lucrative for me as being able to abuse a monopoly, but at least I'm still in business.
If, however, you were taking a loss on a proprietary product in order to give it to everyone for free and destroy my market, then there's nothing I can do - without access to the source and the right to modify and redistribute it, there is no way I can compete with you.
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Re:
It's already been said numerous times, but it's worth saying again. The GPL isn't, never has been, and never will be about how much you pay for the software. It's about re-use of code. Yes, you can sell GPLed code. Red Hat (for instance) does it all the time, and is quite successful at it.
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A must have
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Re: A must have
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Now THATS justice!
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