An injunction against Fortinet for GPL violations [LWN.net]

An injunction against Fortinet for GPL violations

Posted Apr 14, 2005 17:32 UTC (Thu) by azhrei_fje (guest, #26148)
Parent article: An injunction against Fortinet for GPL violations

From what I've heard so far, I like the approach being taken in this process: contact the alleged offender and ask them if they knew what the situation was, then send a C&D letter, then ask for an injunction in court.

To me, it shows an interest in working with the manufacturer before just taking them to court. I would like to know what the time frame was between sending the C&D letter and filing for the injunction, though. If the C&D was sent on March 17th, then they must've filed for the injunction about 2 weeks later, given that the courts will take a week or two to review the case and make a decision. I'm not sure two weeks from C&D to injunction is long enough; on the one hand, it should be done right away, but on the other hand, it might take some time for a C&D letter to get to the right people.

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An injunction against Fortinet for GPL violations

Posted Apr 14, 2005 18:48 UTC (Thu) by euvitudo (guest, #98) [Link]

On the other hand, if you ran a company, wouldn't you take a C&D seriously, or would you consider a C&D threat from a bunch of FOSS people to be insignificant and toothless? Hopefully this will send a message that FOSS licenses should be taken seriously (some companies seem to take, e.g., the GPL, seriously, as there are so many alternative OS licenses to the GPL that have sprung up in recent years--CPL, SISSL, etc.).

Time Limit

Posted Apr 14, 2005 21:20 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

In German law, I gather, you are obliged to file suit within a fixed amount of time (30 days? Two weeks?) after you are first informed of the violation, or lose the right to sue. They can't afford to be too accommodating. In U.S. case law it's a lot more fuzzy. After a while they seem to be able to claim squatters' rights, in violation of the written statute.

Time Limit

Posted Apr 15, 2005 6:35 UTC (Fri) by freddyh (subscriber, #21133) [Link]

The time limit under German law is indeed one month. Herald Welte gave a very nice presentation about the GPL-violations project on Fosdem in which he explained much of the procedure (http://www.fosdem.org/2005/index/speakers/speakers_welte), unfortunately the sheets of his presentation are not yet available.

Time Limit

Posted Apr 15, 2005 6:46 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Exactly, only I believe the time limit is four weeks (perhaps your 30
days?). Harald Welte has mentioned this specifically before, as an
important aspect of the situation. He makes the companies aware of the
situation and the ticking clock in his warnings, and has observed that in
most cases it tends to bring companies that otherwise might wish to drag
things out for years, until the product is no longer on the market anyway
and they've moved on, to the the table much faster. With the clock
ticking like that, they have little recourse. If for whatever reason they
can't move fast enough, they end up with an injunction. However, AFAIK,
it has only gone that far a couple times, both ending up in our favor,
because most companies have sense enough to see the light, and recognize
they are over a barrel.

In many cases, the company hadn't the foggiest idea it was open source
code, either, because they bought it from some fly-by-nite Chinese company
or the like, and any assurances re source origin they got were entirely
worthless. At that point, they pretty much haven't a choice but to make
public their code, and in the future either resolve to check things more
thoroughly, /not/ always taking the low or fastest available bid, or
decide from the experience that it wasn't so bad after all, and they make
a point after that to check for releasable code and do so if they can.

Unfortunately, I don't know which reaction is more common, but in either
case, they end up with a better respect for GPL code, which in itself is
useful, as it strenthens the guarantees that the GPL offer.

Duncan

Time Limit

Posted Apr 21, 2005 16:57 UTC (Thu) by bastiaan (guest, #5170) [Link]

IIRC, you don't lose the right to sue after the time limit. However you *do* lose the right to apply for a temporary injunction. The reasoning is that temporary injunctions are for urgent issues, and taking more than a month to file suit demonstrates the matter is not that urgent to you.