Christoph Hellwig's case against VMware dismissed

Posted Aug 9, 2016 17:52 UTC (Tue) by tbird20d (subscriber, #1901)
In reply to: Christoph Hellwig's case against VMware dismissed by vegard
Parent article: Christoph Hellwig's case against VMware dismissed

vmware code is stripped of comments and non-compiled code, just like anyone else's, when it is compiled and shipped to customers in binary form.

Christoph Hellwig's case against VMware dismissed

Posted Aug 9, 2016 18:00 UTC (Tue) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link] (1 responses)

tbird20d, actually, some (not all, hence the lawsuit) of the code was shipped as source code and binary both. Definitely read the ruling and the materials that Conservancy provided on our website which explains these nuances. This isn't just a mundane no-source-nor-offer violation (although VMware had one of those too initially).

Christoph Hellwig's case against VMware dismissed

Posted Aug 9, 2016 19:50 UTC (Tue) by tbird20d (subscriber, #1901) [Link]

Thanks for the pointer to the SFC site. It has some interesting material. I read the decision, but as is usual for such things, there's always more details that shed light on individual arguments and their merit.

I didn't mean to imply that I endorsed Vmware's analysis of the code. However, I think that it's interesting to note that comments and non-compiled code aren't "distributed". This has bearing (at least in my non-lawyer mind) when analyzing GPL violations.