Re: Licensing question about the BSD

[Alexander Terekhov]

Isaac wrote:
[...]
> ><URL:http://www.netfilter.org/news/2004-04-15-sitecom-gpl.html>
> ><URL:http://gpl-violations.org/news/20050414-fortinet-injunction.html>

I hear that (plonked) GNUtian dak seems to be unaware the District Court 
of Munich I judged that the GPL is a contract governed by the Sect. 158 
of the German Civil Act (BGB) http://dejure.org/gesetze/BGB/158.html.

http://www.jbb.de/judgment_dc_munich_gpl.pdf
http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/resources/feedback/OIIFB_GPL3_20040903.pdf

BTW, here's a rather funny footnote from the JBB's translation:

"2 In the original judgment, the court mentions Section 158 of the 
 "German Copyright Act". This cannot be correct since such paragraph 
 does not exist in said Act. In addition, it is entirely clear that 
 the court referred to Section 158 of the German Civil Code. For 
 these reasons, the translator has taken the liberty to correct the 
 error while at the same time acknowledging that this reference need 
 be made."

Note that Till Jaeger of JBB is Welte's attorney and sorta German
Incarnation of Eben Moglen under German Law so to speak -- he runs 
the "Instituts für Rechtsfragen der Freien und Open Source Software" 
(http://www.ifross.de) which advocates that contractual "condition 
subsequent" model based upon Sect. 158 BGB is the right 
interpretation of the GPL in Germany... and also that as a 
consequence, the GPL'd stuff should be exempt from "first sale"...
other bizarre legal constructions of his own (together with his 
friend Metzger) creation aside for a moment.

regards,
alexander.