Intellectual Property Law

News is emerging that Skype has dropped its effort in the German Courts to challenge the validity of GPL2, still the most commonly used free software licence despite the launch last year of GPL3.

The case is to do with the use of GPL2 licensed software that Skype used in its Skype-phones, and Skype's failure to supply the source code to that software with that phone, as required by GPL2.  As we reported in August 2007, the German Courts ruled that by failing to comply with this requirement Skype had breached the licence terms (see The Register for more details). Skype then took the case to the Appeal Court.

Based on reports on Groklaw and Welte's blog, the German Appeal Court gave Skype's arguments as to invalidity and breaches of anti-trust (i.e. competition) law very short shrift. On the issue of GPL2's requirement to publish/make available source code, Welte reports that one judge made a comment along the following lines:

"If a publisher wants to publish a book of an author that wants his book only to be published in a green envelope, then that might seem odd to you, but still you will have to do it as long as you want to publish the book and have no other agreement in place".

The case was brought by Harald Welte, the world's GPL-compliance policeman, who has been the force behind other successful cases where GPL2 has been enforced in the German Courts. Whilst the individual cases themselves may seem trivial, these decisions have really helped reassure FOSS-using organisations and their clients that the licences are sound.

Given that the case ended because Skype decided to end its appeal, rather than because the Appeal Court gave a ruling, there will be no official decision for us lawyers to get stuck into. Hopefully though, a  definitive record of the comments of various judges on GPL2 during the appeal will appear.