GNU GPL to face court
Post by: bond
The GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPLv2) is always the most widely used and most important license for free and open source software. The GNU GPLv2 is commonly used in Linux distributions and open source applications.Despite its importance, the GPLv2 has not been tested much in legal system and has been the subject of very few court decisions
This lack of court decisions is about to change due to the five interrelated cases arising from a dispute between Versata Software, Inc. ("Versata") (its parent company, Trilogy Development Corporation, is also involved, but Versata is taking the lead) and Ameriprise Financial, Inc. ("Ameriprise”)
There are now five cases arising from these allegations. Because the cases are interrelated, I am enclosing a brief description of each of them:
1. Versata v. Infosys, Case No. 1:10cv792, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas.
Versata sued Infosys for breach of contract and copyright infringement. The parties agreed to a dismissal with prejudice in 2014.
2. Versata, Trilogy Software, Inc. and Trilogy Development Group v. Ameriprise, Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc. and American Enterprise Investment Services, Inc., Case No. D-1-GN-12-003588; 53rd Judicial District Court of Travis County, Texas.
This is the original case in which Versata asserted breach of its license for the DCM software with Ameriprise and tried to terminate the license. It also resulted in case 3 in which Ameriprise removed the case to federal court based on Versata’s defense of copyright preemption in this case.
3. Versata v. Ameriprise et al., Case No. 1:14-cv-12, U.S. District Court, Western District of Texas.
Ameriprise removed the case to federal court based on Versata’s defense of copyright preemption in the Texas case. The parties agreed to a dismissal with prejudice in 2014 after the court ruled that the state law claims of Versata in its defense were preempted, but that Ameriprise’s defense based on the GPLv2 was not preempted. The parties agreed to have the case remanded to the Texas state court.
4. XimpleWare v. Versata, Aurea Software Inc., Trilogy Development Group, Inc., Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc., Ameriprise Financial, Inc., United HealthCare Services, Inc., Waddell & Reed, Inc., Aviva USA Corporation, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, Pacific Life Insurance Company, The Prudential Insurance Company of America, Inc. (subsequently dismissed), Wellmark, Inc., Case No. 5:13cv5161, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).
XimpleWare has sued all defendants for direct patent infringement and declaratory relief and the Versata Defendants for contributory and inducement of patent infringement.
5. XimpleWare v. Versata, Trilogy Development Group, Inc., Ameriprise Financial, Inc., Ameriprise Financial Services, Inc., Aurea Software, Inc., Case No. 3:13cv5160, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.
These cases are dealing with four important terms in the GPLv2:
1. What are the remedies for breach of the terms of the GPLv2?
2. What is a "distribution" under the GPLv2 that triggers the obligations under the GPLv2?
3. Does the GPLv2 include a patent license?
4. What type of integration between proprietary code and GPLv2 licensed code will result in creating a “derivative work” and subject such proprietary code to the terms of the GPLv2?
As posted, in opensource.com
It is expected the court cases will help define what qualifies as a derivative work and how the GPL affects software patents along with other details of how the license is interpreted.
