Geir Magnusson Jr schrieb:
I would further argue that if the author must retain right to revoke the license or have control over derivative works, then open source is impossible in Germany.
Obiously it is not, as long as the software users accept the potenial risk of having to replace the software with something else. The revokation right is not my interpretation, but very clearly stated in the law.
Given that there is plenty of open-source activity in Germany - and serious efforts - I think that we're misunderstanding something fundamental about German copyright law.
It is unfortunately not very uncommon that German companies have a policy not to use OS software at all, partly because of the unclear legal status and potential problems, which may arise with a legal dispute, partly because of other issues, e.g. not having anyone to sue if something goes wrong. As I was working for Siemens 5-6 years ago, this limitiation was so strict, that we were not even allowed to use open source text editors (e.g. vi or Emacs) to write code, but were forced to use a very poor and annoying product, as there were not really many options when you have to find a commercial text editor for HP-UX.
Tor
