On 9/20/05, Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > Harald Welte have successfully pursued > infringment claims against people who violate the GPL.
Einstweilige Verfuegung (ex parte action) != Hauptverfahren (lawsuit). http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/43996.html <quote> It's a Small Welte After All Across the wide ocean, other enforcement of the GPL runs along a different trail. Harald Welte, a self-appointed enforcer of the GPL who operates a GPL Web site filed two actions with the District Court of Munich to enforce the license. In both cases, Welte was the author of code that had appeared in the defendant's product. The court granted Welte an injunction against Sitecom Deutschland GmbH, prohibiting Sitecom from distributing a wireless networking router until it complied with the GPL. </quote> Well, the injunction was about "netfilter/iptables code" and nothing else. No word about the router. http://groups.google.de/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/f80709afd63b125a http://groups.google.de/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/cba0154ba16f2117 <quote> Sitecom appealed the injunction, but lost, </quote> Sitecom's objection (not really "appeal") to the injunction had really nothing to do with the GPL. And the subsequent ruling by the same district court "discussing" the GPL (as presented by Welte's attorney) was so bizarre that nobody over here in his right mind believes that it could have withstand the scrutiny of Hauptverfahren, real appeals aside for a moment. <quote> and Sitecom later posted the terms of the GPL on its FAQ Web page for the router. Welte also filed for an injunction against Fortinet UK Ltd. based on its firewall products, with similar results. Though much has been made of these two cases, there are reasons why Welte has already obtained injunctions in Germany while the FSF has not yet sought one in the US. Injunctive enforcement in Germany is so simple and quick that it makes Americans suspicious about piddling legal details like legal due process. In Germany, a preliminary injunction can be obtained ex parte -- in other words, without giving the defendant the chance to defend itself. (This has the appropriately scary sounding name einstweilige Verfuegung.) </quote> See also: http://groups.google.de/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips/msg/1e07... http://groups.google.de/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.chips/msg/3bdf... regards, alexander.