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French court issues damages award for violation of GPL

guappa 3y ago
> The Court of Cassation, which is the supreme court of France, reviewed the case and issued an order on October 5, 2022 overturning the decision of the Court of Appeal. The case was then remanded to the Court of Appeal, which issued its order this week. I know nothing of france's legal procedures, but it seems strange that the lower court, after being ordered something, could drag its feet for so long.
- Tomte 3y ago
  The upper court probably didn't direct the lower court to issue a specific judgment, but clarified a legal question, and then the trial had to be repeated in the lower court, with this interpretation of the legal question in mind.
- touisteur 3y ago
  You're assuming they had the bandwidth to even just process the order from the inbox.
- seszett 3y ago
  I'm not familiar with the US system but I don't think the court de cassation is actually comparable to the US supreme court. The court de cassation only overturns judgements on the basis of technical details of law, whether every procedure was followed as they should, etc. It doesn't provide any feedback on the actual judgement it overturns (or not). So the court that does the actual judging is free to get to the same judgement as before if it respects the process correctly this time. But this is essentially a new judgement that starts from zero and takes as much time as the first time.
  - addcommitpush 3y ago
    And the “is this law constitutional?” part is done by the Constitutional council, which is not quite a court. And there’s a second Supreme Court (Conseil d’État) anyway. Quite different from the US.
    - mcosta 3y ago
      Roman law vs Common law
  - lucianbr 3y ago
    > this is essentially a new judgement that starts from zero and takes as much time as the first time Did the court de cassation overturn every single detail pertaining to the original judgement? Kinda feels like they should be able to speed up the new judgement, and only change whatever detail or details the superior court said were wrong. Well, I don't know much about this subject, but these delays make justice less just, and I don't understand how this is not obvious to everyone but the guilty.
    - seszett 3y ago
      The case is almost always sent to a different court from the one that had its judgement overturned. The new court doesn't necessarily have to redo everything from scratch, only the precise points that were overturned, but obviously if it was something early in the procedure then many things might need to be reviewed. I believe what contributes most to the delay though is just that the French legal system (like most others) is overloaded and it just takes time until the case gets to the front of the queue.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Court procedures take a huge amount of time in France and nothing prevents appeals, etc. So it's pretty much usual for the case to take years in the first court then for one party to appeal, which again takes years, and finally for one party to appeal the appeal, which sends the case to Cassation, which again takes years and possibly sends the case back to appeal (which is what has happened here). It's not very unusual for criminal cases to drag on for a decade between arrest and end of all procedures, for instance.
- pyrale 3y ago
  > I know nothing of france's legal procedures, but it seems strange that the lower court, after being ordered something, could drag its feet for so long. The cour de cassassion can't rule on the case. It rules on whether the previous ruling was made properly according to legal standards. It is possible that the cc broke the previous decision for a reason unrelated to the case matter, and so the lower court can reissue a decision respecting the spirit of their first decision, but without the legal error.
allywilson 3y ago
> Orange used the Lasso software in the solution, but did not pass on the rights to its modifications free of charge under GPL, or make the source code to its modifications available. Has Orange now made the modified code available? The artice doesn't mention that.
- riquito 3y ago
  "dual licensed", is much more likely that Orange buy a commercial license
asah 3y ago
The headline implies a win, but I'm not so sure... $820K USD isn't a deterrent and to the plaintiffs, it's minus 100s of hours, distraction and legal fees which will be high given the complexity.
- Drakim 3y ago
  It does set legal precedent though which is great.
  - larschdk 3y ago
    France has a civil law system where precendent is not binding nor persuasive.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      But it does provide clarified opinion on how to apply tge law in similar cases, and that will be followed in future cases. That's how it works in Germany, and in principle our systems are similar enough.
      - account42 3y ago
        It doesn't even matter if it will be considered for other cases - simply having an example showing that yes the GPL can be enforced will work as a deterrent before things even go to court.
        hef19898 3y ago
        True, in German it is called "Rechtssicherheit", the presence of a clear, agreed understanding of a law and its application. The idea being, some not 110% defined legal questions get litigated once, and then most follow the outcome.
    - erk__ 3y ago
      Is that also true of opinions of the French supreme court? In Denmark, another civil law system the highest court can give judgement in cases of principal character that should be followed in the future.
Arech 3y ago
> Entr’Ouvert sued Orange in 2010 How such a simple thing could take 14 years to untangle? How could anyone trust in courts that have such a spectacular efficiency?
- sebstefan 3y ago
  Our supreme court got involved, I don't think that's a fast process in any country.
  - lucianbr 3y ago
    What you say is true, and relevant to the discussion, but... it doesn't answer anything. A very long and dragged out process takes away the justness of it all, and the fact that the supreme court was involved does not change that in any way. If you're a victim, the courts are supposed to provide a remedy. Even the supreme court. That's at least part of their reason for existing. If you have to wait 14 years for a remedy, they're not doing their job right, no matter how supreme they are. The fact that it goes the same in other countries also doesn't help. The system is broken everywhere, that's all.
    - Seb-C 3y ago
      Justice in France has been broken and supremely inefficient for a very long time unfortunately.
    - enqk 3y ago
      I find that a lot of support services for individuals are like that in France, technically there but made ineffective because they are very slow.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      Sadly, "justice" isn't the job of the supreme court, it's to interpret the constituion. If it takes 10 months or 10 years, that's not an issue in the grand scheme of things. For the US, the right to a speedy trial is for criminal cases, not civil. And I don't think breaking software licenses is a criminal act unless a mass of damages were done. That's basically the logic that LLM's are working off of right now; get into dubious lawsuits and become top of the food chain by the time the litigation settles. Heck, quite a few pieces of tech work that way. Lootboxes came and went in western video games before it even had time to be challenged.
dagmx 3y ago
I’m glad there’s finally some cases setting precedent for the GPL. I am personally not a fan of GPL family licenses BUT I am sick of fellow OSS developers who keep telling me not to worry about the minutiae of the license. (Usually some form of “Oh don’t worry because we aren’t litigious right now, as long as you stick with our incorrect interpretation of the license”) My team is responsible for a lot of corporate contributions to open source (some GPL) and I have to pay extra attention to the license terms as a result. There’s a lot of GPL software that operates in the grey (and many OSS devs who don’t understand their license choices), and I very much like my licenses to be as black and white as possible so I can avoid any risk. Having legal precedence to point to will help make concerns concrete.
- Semaphor 3y ago
  > There’s a lot of GPL software that operates in the grey (and many OSS devs who don’t understand their license choices), Do you have examples? What kinds of misunderstanding are there? And what gets clarified by this case that wasn’t clear before?
  - dagmx 3y ago
    I can’t give specific examples without calling out some projects. But usually it’s a misunderstanding of what derivative works are. E.g building an extension to a GPL app. Many don’t believe that simply importing a GPL Python module is enough to make your extension have to comply to GPL. Or things like what constitutes distribution. E.g employees vs contractors vs third party collaborators etc… But when I have to deal with said project owners, they bring up that the GPL is about the spirit of the license, not the exact words. They often say not to worry about litigation. This case doesn’t specifically clarify those terms but it does highlight that GPL violation is a serious issue that can’t just be treated as a suggestion. That any lawsuit has taken place and won means that 1. I can point to cases where the license choice is impactful when working with existing projects or when setting up new OSS projects in my industry 2. It also means that the license proponents may feel more empowered (as they should) to take action against infringement. Basically, very few people take software licenses as seriously as they should. Cases like these help make them a more serious matter. The more seriously people take it, the easier my job gets for multiple reasons. And since someone might ask, the license I advocate for the most is Apache 2.0. It covers the most ground, with the most clarity and the most protections for all parties involved.
maelito 3y ago
Just set my code on one project from MIT to GPL, since it's a personal project without public funding. I was expecting this kind of consequences if someone breaches the license, I'm glad it's the case.
- account42 3y ago
  You're glad that you have to pay lawyers for a decade to get some recourse?
  - jemorya 3y ago
    A more generous interpretation of their comment is that they are glad that some legal precedence has been set. The same case would not go through courts for another decade.
    - flanked-evergl 3y ago
      Why not?
      - hk__2 3y ago
        Because next time the decision from the Cour de cassation will already exist.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    On the other hand, many companies view GPL software as some sort of kryptonite these days. So a good number of them -- at least the ones that are knowledgeable about software licensing -- won't even go near your software. Personally I'd consider this a good thing; opinions vary, of course. Certainly there will be some companies that will just see open source code out there and use it, without considering the license at all (not even sure this is most often malice; I expect usually it's just a random developer who doesn't know any better). But ultimately it's up to the copyright holder if they want to bring some sort of legal action or not. With MIT, you can't stop anyone from doing much of anything, for the most part. With the GPL, you at least give yourself the option, should you decide it's worth pursuing.
noname120 3y ago
Primary source: https://www.courdecassation.fr/decision/65cdbcdf2425a70008258563 https://www.courdecassation.fr/decision/65cdbcdf2425a7000825... Orange has to pay €860k[1] (≈ $934k) + lawyer fees to Entr'Ouvert. [1] €500k + €150k + €150k + €60k = €860k
- mrbn100ful 3y ago
  It's way more, 4 100 000 € 3 millions euro for copyright, 500 000 € for moral damage, 500 000€ for the money Orange made and at least 100 000€ for the lawyer fees plus 1/3 of the remaining fees. And 3 ADs in IT magazine(to show what Orange did wrong). In the document : - Condamner in solidum les sociétés Orange et Orange Business Services à payer à la société Entr'Ouvert les sommes suivantes : 3 000 000 euros (trois millions d'euros) en raison des conséquences économiques négatives de l'atteinte aux droits d'auteur de la société Entr'Ouvert, dont le manque à gagner et la perte subis, 500 000 euros (cinq cent mille euros) au titre du préjudice moral subi par la société Entr'Ouvert, 500 000 euros (cinq cent mille euros) au titre des bénéfices réalisés par les sociétés Orange et Orange Business Services. - Autoriser la société Entr'Ouvert à procéder à la publication de tout ou partie de la décision à intervenir après signification de l'arrêt, dans trois magazines professionnels spécialisés choisis par la société Entr'Ouvert, ainsi que sur les sites internet des sociétés Entr'Ouvert et Orange, aux frais d'Orange, dans la limite de 5 000 euros HT par publication ; - Condamner in solidum les sociétés Orange et Orange Business Services à payer à la société Entr'Ouvert la somme de 100 000 euros (cent mille euros) au titre de l'article 700 du code de procédure civile, ainsi qu'aux entiers dépens en ce compris les frais d'Huissiers dont ceux relatifs à la saisie-contrefaçon.
  - alberto-m 3y ago
    No, 4.1 millions was the request (“Entr'Ouvert, appelante, demande à la cour de...”; later, “La société Entr'Ouvert soutient que...”). What was awarded is in the section “Dispositif”, the rest of the document is just the recapitulation of the case, including what was requested by both parties.
- nbenitezl 3y ago
  Being sarcastic, I bet the commercial license from EntrOuvert was way cheaper than 860k, this horrendous decision should mean firing of the managers involved in Orange, but being a semipublic company the incentives are wrong and these managers probably have promoted since then.
Linda231 3y ago
[dead]
tovej 3y ago
It sounds like the reason it took so long was that they had to decide whether this was a copyright claim or a breach of contract claim. Could someone more versed on license law clarify this, at first glance it seems like an obvious breach of contract if they've just used the entire Lasso library and not followed the license. Was orange copying specific parts of the library and hoping nobody notices?
- missjellyfish 3y ago
  Copyright in Europe fundamentally does not work like Copyright in US. More precisely, the law does not govern the monetary gains possible from copying but rather the author's artistical expression in the work. Which is kind of moot regarding source code, but, it makes for an important decision: author's rights are created automatically and you cannot transfer them under any circumstances whatsoever. Per default, the law states that the author retains all rights. They can license it, e.g. to their employer, exclusively; The employer can then sublicense that. However what licenses are possible is exhaustively defined in the law; on an abstract basis at least (e.g. using, creating derivative works, ...). It has been not exactly clear if conditions evoked on a license still have their roots in these licensable acts, or if they are based on contract law - where literally anything goes as long as it's not against the law or immoral. Both can be enforced. However, I'd argue that it is good that it was decided that this is a copyright law matter, because this gives authors _much_ more protection than contract law, where all circumstances need to be evaluated for each single case and rulings might as well contradict each other. Not a lawyer yet, though.
  - graemep 3y ago
    Maybe some European countries, but copyright law varies across Europe. You can definitely transfer copyright in the UK, rather than an exclusive license. You might be confusing copyright with moral rights which are not transferable but I believe that is the same in the US.
    - missjellyfish 3y ago
      I was simplyfying. What I described is unified in the European Union; however, the outlined distinction is common across the roman-germanic law system whereas the US copyright interpretation is rooted in common law. In Europe, the only countries using common law are UK and Ireland. And while Ireland has mostly unified their copyright law with the rest of the european union, you still see some roots in common law. For example, it is possible that an irish company (a legal person) can become an author of a work, which is impossible under e.g. german law. And yes: in a common law system, copyright governs literally "the right to copy", which is transferable. In other law systems (which is the distinction I made) the law governs the property rights of the author's expression, which is non-transferrable, you can only license the rights you have.
neilv 3y ago
The first sentence on "https://lasso.entrouvert.org/ https://lasso.entrouvert.org/" starts: > Lasso is a free software C library [...] I wish people would stop saying "free software". It was confusing from the beginning, and hasn't stopped being confusing. Imagine RMS saying, "I'm glad you asked that. By 'free', we don't mean free as in beer (nor what everyone means when they search for some kind of 'free software'); we mean free as in freedom. Which I will proceed to speak about for half an hour, now that you're engaged by this small bit of wordplay that you had no reason to suspect was wordplay." (Not that the ambiguity of "free software" was the cause of the Orange violation of Lasso. But, really, please stop calling it "free". Say "GPL", or some other license, or "libre", or anything other than "free".)
- silisili 3y ago
  If your slogan requires that you define a word or words in it, it's probably not a good slogan.
- abricq 3y ago
  To be fair, the second sentence is > Lasso is [...] licensed under the GNU General Public License
- roydivision 3y ago
  Ironically the French language makes the distinction where English doesn't: Libre - free as in 'You are free to do as you wish.' Gratuit - free as in 'I’ve got two free tickets for the film.'
  - input_sh 3y ago
    I wouldn't call it ironic, I'm pretty sure there's two separate words for free in the vast majority of languages. English is the outlier, not the other way around.
  - hk__2 3y ago
    English used to have "gratis", but it’s not used anymore.
- 3y ago
hyperthesis 3y ago
€650,000
keepamovin 3y ago
Seems it would have simply been prudent for company to have obtained a commercial OSS exemption. And if not offered to have requested one. Shady undertones that companies seem almost to want to use OSS without ever raising that commercial issue, as if sneaking around hoping the authors will never wise up to their rights—just to save a few bucks? Breach of contract.
iLoveOncall 3y ago
Licenses is really a cancer that the open source world never needed. If I release my code, it's with the license "do whatever the fuck you want". Otherwise I wouldn't release it.
- nottorp 3y ago
  There is a license for that, you know...
  - oniony 3y ago
    One does not need a license for public domain.
    - nottorp 3y ago
      Pretty sure in some jurisdictions your public code is automatically copyright you. You may not care but the potential users will, to be protected from you chaging your mind in the future.
    - Jach 3y ago
      It's theoretically helpful to at least put in a no-warranties clause. But sqlite as maybe the most popular public domain project worldwide doesn't (instead having just the declaration and a blessing). I mostly settled on the Unlicense https://unlicense.org/ https://unlicense.org/ over just declaring 'public domain' or 'CC0' as a simple text blob to paste in, and in the event of a significant contribution from someone else, there's a simple text blurb to ask them to say 'yes' to in order to keep the code unencumbered.
    - pierat 3y ago
      And in some jurisdictions, like Germany, there is no such "public domain". In other jurisdictions, like England, museums can claim 'copyright' on antiquities, preventing 3d scanning and uploading.
  - iLoveOncall 3y ago
    Yeah I know, and it should be the only option for open-source projects. The rest is just bringing politics where it doesn't belong.
nottorp 3y ago
One thing to note is that the library was also available for commercial licensing from the start. Makes it easy to demonstrate harm and establish damages. Now we need two more landmark cases: - one that awards damages for a pure GPL library that doesn't have commercial licensing available - one that exonerates some company that is LGPL compliant but is sued by the likes of Digia in hope of squeezing some money out of them
- alwayslikethis 3y ago
  For the first one, a forced release of source code is more important than the damages. I would also like to see a few AGPL cases to demonstrate its validity.
  - tga_d 3y ago
    Not a lawyer, but IIUC it's never going to be the case that a GPL violation legally compels someone to release the resulting source code. There is no rule in copyright law that says you have to do that, and the GPL is just a license agreement at the end of the day, not a law. The best you can do is say you'll collect some fine for copyright violation or breach of contract if they don't release the source code, which was the issue of substance here too. As an analogy, if I have a plot of land with a sign that says "$1 million to enter", and someone enters without paying, the worst I can do is something like a trespassing charge, not collect $1 million because the sign said so.
    - hn_acker 3y ago
      > There is no rule in copyright law that says you have to do that, and the GPL is just a license agreement at the end of the day, not a law. The best you can do is say you'll collect some fine for copyright violation or breach of contract if they don't release the source code, which was the issue of substance here too. In the US, a GPL can be both a license and a contract at the same time [1]. The distribution rights granted by a GPL to the user are conditional on the user's compliance with the GPL. Contract law allows for punitive damages. Copyright law allows for 1. permanent injunctions against the defendant's continued use and/or distribution of the copyrighted work and 2. statutory damages xor actual damages. Every GPL requires distribution of source code under the same licensing terms to users already given the object code, so the party suing to enforce the GPL can request that the court compel distribution of the source code; the court can agree or disagree. The court can also decide to give the GPL violator the choice of 1. releasing the source code or 2. no longer distributing any copies or derivatives of the GPL'd software until the violator releases the source code or 3. whatever else. The court may impose a punitive fine in any case. [1] https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/
JonChesterfield 3y ago
Surprised it's not mentioned already. OpenAI recently fed everything on GitHub into a language model which will cheerfully reproduce GPL'd software without license or attribution. I think that's the end of "free software" in the GPL sense. There is zero point to writing AGPL on a program if copying it into a language model and then back out into a text file without the license is a legitimate thing to do. I can't imagine this being countered effectively by lawsuit. Microsoft has built a weapon that they can use to disassemble open source software, I think they'll take the legal side of that seriously enough that GPL will be a distant memory by the time the courts conclude in either direction.
- bayindirh 3y ago
  People don't want to acknowledge it, because they deem that CoPilot and similar tools are too useful. I personally left the day CoPilot became GA. It's an open secret that xGPL licensed applications are fed into AI models, but opponents' voice is drowned under "We're doing something amazing, we don't need any permission. Plus, it's all fair use, anyway" choir. This also important for Source Available (for your eyes only) licenses. People don't care about them either. This whole AI thing is a boundless ethics violation in every category, yet people don't care, because "it's awesome!" for reasons I don't understand. Addendum: The reason why OpenAI has a non-profit part is to allow them to claim that they do non-profit research, which fair-use doctrine requires to work.
  - whaleofatw2022 3y ago
    We have been conditioned for decades to allow an increasingly slippery slope of dubious behavior in the name of 'cool'
    - lo_zamoyski 3y ago
      Cool, or convenient.
      - prox 3y ago
shoubidouwah 3y ago
Naively, if a model is smart enough to spit / whitewash a bit of code, it is also smart enough to add attribution, isn't it? Wouldn't correct attribution be just a master prompt line away?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
picadores 3y ago
Up Next: Ambulance chasers offering there services to GPL projects.. the hunt begins.
- keepamovin 3y ago
  I don’t know… that’s kind of a negative way to see it. but I mean those auto DMCA takedown services already kind of do something like this right? Why shouldn’t IP violation checking as a service be a real thing that open developers can access? I think your framing of this is wrong. More empowerment and legal protection and enforcement for developers that underpin the ecosystem is a good thing.
iamstupid 3y ago
Doesn't this contradict EU law? Specifically this: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/why-viral-licensing-ghost https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/why-viral-l... I guess the fact that the software was also offered with a commercial license could be considered that it prejudices the legitimate interest of the author of the library. IANAL, but I think this might be a one-off (most GPL libraries do not have a commercial license alternative, so...).
brudgers 3y ago
Entr’Ouvert sued Orange in 2010 Your license choice matters based on your wherewithal to litigate upon bad actors. And your license choice segments good actors into those who will and won't use your software. The rest is theory.
sidewndr46 3y ago
From what I can tell this is a judgment against some sort of government services provider. So the damages will just end up being paid by the citizens via taxation.
- alentred 3y ago
  I don't think this is correct. The case was against Orange, which is a publicly traded company. I don't see how they could "invoice" it to their customers. Also, the service was rolled out ~14 years ago, I assume it was paid by this time. I guess they might increase the maintenance fee, though, to absorb this over time. But, most importantly, it is not relevant. If an entity is found guilty, they are supposed to cover the damages, whoever they or their customers are. Even it turns out being covered from my taxes in a legitimate way, I am glad to pay for it - this is how the justice is served, and we all get to keep the healthy judiciary and executive process.
williamDafoe 3y ago
Should be retitled. "pyrrhic victory might cover some of the legal costs"...
jiveturkey 3y ago
Have there been any other cases of GPL violations where damages were awarded? I found https://gpl-violations.org/news/ https://gpl-violations.org/news/ from another commentor but from there I count only 2 judgements and no mention of remedy.
kilolima 3y ago
For the first time, I can see the advantage of AI for a forum like HN. Have the AI scan the comments and generate a summary and links to show/hide, as an example: 80% of comments are pedantic. 10% of comments discuss the actual topic. 5% of comments are excited/hopeful. 30% of comments are probable astroturfing. 20% of comments are by users who are most likely millenials. 1% of comments are by former /.'ers. etc. Ideally this could just run locally and operate on any website as needed, like browser userscripts now.

> The Court of Cassation, which is the supreme court of France, reviewed the case and issued an order on October 5, 2022 overturning the decision of the Court of Appeal. The case was then remanded to the Court of Appeal, which issued its order this week. I know nothing of france's legal procedures, but it seems strange that the lower court, after being ordered something, could drag its feet for so long.

Tomte 3y ago
The upper court probably didn't direct the lower court to issue a specific judgment, but clarified a legal question, and then the trial had to be repeated in the lower court, with this interpretation of the legal question in mind.
touisteur 3y ago
You're assuming they had the bandwidth to even just process the order from the inbox.
seszett 3y ago
I'm not familiar with the US system but I don't think the court de cassation is actually comparable to the US supreme court. The court de cassation only overturns judgements on the basis of technical details of law, whether every procedure was followed as they should, etc. It doesn't provide any feedback on the actual judgement it overturns (or not). So the court that does the actual judging is free to get to the same judgement as before if it respects the process correctly this time. But this is essentially a new judgement that starts from zero and takes as much time as the first time.
- addcommitpush 3y ago
  And the “is this law constitutional?” part is done by the Constitutional council, which is not quite a court. And there’s a second Supreme Court (Conseil d’État) anyway. Quite different from the US.
  - mcosta 3y ago
    Roman law vs Common law
- lucianbr 3y ago
  > this is essentially a new judgement that starts from zero and takes as much time as the first time Did the court de cassation overturn every single detail pertaining to the original judgement? Kinda feels like they should be able to speed up the new judgement, and only change whatever detail or details the superior court said were wrong. Well, I don't know much about this subject, but these delays make justice less just, and I don't understand how this is not obvious to everyone but the guilty.
  - seszett 3y ago
    The case is almost always sent to a different court from the one that had its judgement overturned. The new court doesn't necessarily have to redo everything from scratch, only the precise points that were overturned, but obviously if it was something early in the procedure then many things might need to be reviewed. I believe what contributes most to the delay though is just that the French legal system (like most others) is overloaded and it just takes time until the case gets to the front of the queue.
mytailorisrich 3y ago
Court procedures take a huge amount of time in France and nothing prevents appeals, etc. So it's pretty much usual for the case to take years in the first court then for one party to appeal, which again takes years, and finally for one party to appeal the appeal, which sends the case to Cassation, which again takes years and possibly sends the case back to appeal (which is what has happened here). It's not very unusual for criminal cases to drag on for a decade between arrest and end of all procedures, for instance.
pyrale 3y ago
> I know nothing of france's legal procedures, but it seems strange that the lower court, after being ordered something, could drag its feet for so long. The cour de cassassion can't rule on the case. It rules on whether the previous ruling was made properly according to legal standards. It is possible that the cc broke the previous decision for a reason unrelated to the case matter, and so the lower court can reissue a decision respecting the spirit of their first decision, but without the legal error.

allywilson 3y ago

> Orange used the Lasso software in the solution, but did not pass on the rights to its modifications free of charge under GPL, or make the source code to its modifications available. Has Orange now made the modified code available? The artice doesn't mention that.

riquito 3y ago
"dual licensed", is much more likely that Orange buy a commercial license

asah 3y ago

The headline implies a win, but I'm not so sure... $820K USD isn't a deterrent and to the plaintiffs, it's minus 100s of hours, distraction and legal fees which will be high given the complexity.

Drakim 3y ago
It does set legal precedent though which is great.
- larschdk 3y ago
  France has a civil law system where precendent is not binding nor persuasive.
  - hef19898 3y ago
    But it does provide clarified opinion on how to apply tge law in similar cases, and that will be followed in future cases. That's how it works in Germany, and in principle our systems are similar enough.
    - account42 3y ago
      It doesn't even matter if it will be considered for other cases - simply having an example showing that yes the GPL can be enforced will work as a deterrent before things even go to court.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        True, in German it is called "Rechtssicherheit", the presence of a clear, agreed understanding of a law and its application. The idea being, some not 110% defined legal questions get litigated once, and then most follow the outcome.
  - erk__ 3y ago
    Is that also true of opinions of the French supreme court? In Denmark, another civil law system the highest court can give judgement in cases of principal character that should be followed in the future.

Arech 3y ago

> Entr’Ouvert sued Orange in 2010 How such a simple thing could take 14 years to untangle? How could anyone trust in courts that have such a spectacular efficiency?

sebstefan 3y ago
Our supreme court got involved, I don't think that's a fast process in any country.
- lucianbr 3y ago
  What you say is true, and relevant to the discussion, but... it doesn't answer anything. A very long and dragged out process takes away the justness of it all, and the fact that the supreme court was involved does not change that in any way. If you're a victim, the courts are supposed to provide a remedy. Even the supreme court. That's at least part of their reason for existing. If you have to wait 14 years for a remedy, they're not doing their job right, no matter how supreme they are. The fact that it goes the same in other countries also doesn't help. The system is broken everywhere, that's all.
  - Seb-C 3y ago
    Justice in France has been broken and supremely inefficient for a very long time unfortunately.
  - enqk 3y ago
    I find that a lot of support services for individuals are like that in France, technically there but made ineffective because they are very slow.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Sadly, "justice" isn't the job of the supreme court, it's to interpret the constituion. If it takes 10 months or 10 years, that's not an issue in the grand scheme of things. For the US, the right to a speedy trial is for criminal cases, not civil. And I don't think breaking software licenses is a criminal act unless a mass of damages were done. That's basically the logic that LLM's are working off of right now; get into dubious lawsuits and become top of the food chain by the time the litigation settles. Heck, quite a few pieces of tech work that way. Lootboxes came and went in western video games before it even had time to be challenged.

dagmx 3y ago

I’m glad there’s finally some cases setting precedent for the GPL. I am personally not a fan of GPL family licenses BUT I am sick of fellow OSS developers who keep telling me not to worry about the minutiae of the license. (Usually some form of “Oh don’t worry because we aren’t litigious right now, as long as you stick with our incorrect interpretation of the license”) My team is responsible for a lot of corporate contributions to open source (some GPL) and I have to pay extra attention to the license terms as a result. There’s a lot of GPL software that operates in the grey (and many OSS devs who don’t understand their license choices), and I very much like my licenses to be as black and white as possible so I can avoid any risk. Having legal precedence to point to will help make concerns concrete.

Semaphor 3y ago
> There’s a lot of GPL software that operates in the grey (and many OSS devs who don’t understand their license choices), Do you have examples? What kinds of misunderstanding are there? And what gets clarified by this case that wasn’t clear before?
- dagmx 3y ago
  I can’t give specific examples without calling out some projects. But usually it’s a misunderstanding of what derivative works are. E.g building an extension to a GPL app. Many don’t believe that simply importing a GPL Python module is enough to make your extension have to comply to GPL. Or things like what constitutes distribution. E.g employees vs contractors vs third party collaborators etc… But when I have to deal with said project owners, they bring up that the GPL is about the spirit of the license, not the exact words. They often say not to worry about litigation. This case doesn’t specifically clarify those terms but it does highlight that GPL violation is a serious issue that can’t just be treated as a suggestion. That any lawsuit has taken place and won means that 1. I can point to cases where the license choice is impactful when working with existing projects or when setting up new OSS projects in my industry 2. It also means that the license proponents may feel more empowered (as they should) to take action against infringement. Basically, very few people take software licenses as seriously as they should. Cases like these help make them a more serious matter. The more seriously people take it, the easier my job gets for multiple reasons. And since someone might ask, the license I advocate for the most is Apache 2.0. It covers the most ground, with the most clarity and the most protections for all parties involved.

maelito 3y ago

Just set my code on one project from MIT to GPL, since it's a personal project without public funding. I was expecting this kind of consequences if someone breaches the license, I'm glad it's the case.

account42 3y ago
You're glad that you have to pay lawyers for a decade to get some recourse?
- jemorya 3y ago
  A more generous interpretation of their comment is that they are glad that some legal precedence has been set. The same case would not go through courts for another decade.
  - flanked-evergl 3y ago
    Why not?
    - hk__2 3y ago
      Because next time the decision from the Cour de cassation will already exist.
- kelnos 3y ago
  On the other hand, many companies view GPL software as some sort of kryptonite these days. So a good number of them -- at least the ones that are knowledgeable about software licensing -- won't even go near your software. Personally I'd consider this a good thing; opinions vary, of course. Certainly there will be some companies that will just see open source code out there and use it, without considering the license at all (not even sure this is most often malice; I expect usually it's just a random developer who doesn't know any better). But ultimately it's up to the copyright holder if they want to bring some sort of legal action or not. With MIT, you can't stop anyone from doing much of anything, for the most part. With the GPL, you at least give yourself the option, should you decide it's worth pursuing.

noname120 3y ago

Primary source: https://www.courdecassation.fr/decision/65cdbcdf2425a70008258563 https://www.courdecassation.fr/decision/65cdbcdf2425a7000825... Orange has to pay €860k[1] (≈ $934k) + lawyer fees to Entr'Ouvert. [1] €500k + €150k + €150k + €60k = €860k

mrbn100ful 3y ago
It's way more, 4 100 000 € 3 millions euro for copyright, 500 000 € for moral damage, 500 000€ for the money Orange made and at least 100 000€ for the lawyer fees plus 1/3 of the remaining fees. And 3 ADs in IT magazine(to show what Orange did wrong). In the document : - Condamner in solidum les sociétés Orange et Orange Business Services à payer à la société Entr'Ouvert les sommes suivantes : 3 000 000 euros (trois millions d'euros) en raison des conséquences économiques négatives de l'atteinte aux droits d'auteur de la société Entr'Ouvert, dont le manque à gagner et la perte subis, 500 000 euros (cinq cent mille euros) au titre du préjudice moral subi par la société Entr'Ouvert, 500 000 euros (cinq cent mille euros) au titre des bénéfices réalisés par les sociétés Orange et Orange Business Services. - Autoriser la société Entr'Ouvert à procéder à la publication de tout ou partie de la décision à intervenir après signification de l'arrêt, dans trois magazines professionnels spécialisés choisis par la société Entr'Ouvert, ainsi que sur les sites internet des sociétés Entr'Ouvert et Orange, aux frais d'Orange, dans la limite de 5 000 euros HT par publication ; - Condamner in solidum les sociétés Orange et Orange Business Services à payer à la société Entr'Ouvert la somme de 100 000 euros (cent mille euros) au titre de l'article 700 du code de procédure civile, ainsi qu'aux entiers dépens en ce compris les frais d'Huissiers dont ceux relatifs à la saisie-contrefaçon.
- alberto-m 3y ago
  No, 4.1 millions was the request (“Entr'Ouvert, appelante, demande à la cour de...”; later, “La société Entr'Ouvert soutient que...”). What was awarded is in the section “Dispositif”, the rest of the document is just the recapitulation of the case, including what was requested by both parties.
nbenitezl 3y ago
Being sarcastic, I bet the commercial license from EntrOuvert was way cheaper than 860k, this horrendous decision should mean firing of the managers involved in Orange, but being a semipublic company the incentives are wrong and these managers probably have promoted since then.

Linda231 3y ago

[dead]

tovej 3y ago

It sounds like the reason it took so long was that they had to decide whether this was a copyright claim or a breach of contract claim. Could someone more versed on license law clarify this, at first glance it seems like an obvious breach of contract if they've just used the entire Lasso library and not followed the license. Was orange copying specific parts of the library and hoping nobody notices?

missjellyfish 3y ago
Copyright in Europe fundamentally does not work like Copyright in US. More precisely, the law does not govern the monetary gains possible from copying but rather the author's artistical expression in the work. Which is kind of moot regarding source code, but, it makes for an important decision: author's rights are created automatically and you cannot transfer them under any circumstances whatsoever. Per default, the law states that the author retains all rights. They can license it, e.g. to their employer, exclusively; The employer can then sublicense that. However what licenses are possible is exhaustively defined in the law; on an abstract basis at least (e.g. using, creating derivative works, ...). It has been not exactly clear if conditions evoked on a license still have their roots in these licensable acts, or if they are based on contract law - where literally anything goes as long as it's not against the law or immoral. Both can be enforced. However, I'd argue that it is good that it was decided that this is a copyright law matter, because this gives authors _much_ more protection than contract law, where all circumstances need to be evaluated for each single case and rulings might as well contradict each other. Not a lawyer yet, though.
- graemep 3y ago
  Maybe some European countries, but copyright law varies across Europe. You can definitely transfer copyright in the UK, rather than an exclusive license. You might be confusing copyright with moral rights which are not transferable but I believe that is the same in the US.
  - missjellyfish 3y ago
    I was simplyfying. What I described is unified in the European Union; however, the outlined distinction is common across the roman-germanic law system whereas the US copyright interpretation is rooted in common law. In Europe, the only countries using common law are UK and Ireland. And while Ireland has mostly unified their copyright law with the rest of the european union, you still see some roots in common law. For example, it is possible that an irish company (a legal person) can become an author of a work, which is impossible under e.g. german law. And yes: in a common law system, copyright governs literally "the right to copy", which is transferable. In other law systems (which is the distinction I made) the law governs the property rights of the author's expression, which is non-transferrable, you can only license the rights you have.

neilv 3y ago

The first sentence on "https://lasso.entrouvert.org/ https://lasso.entrouvert.org/" starts: > Lasso is a free software C library [...] I wish people would stop saying "free software". It was confusing from the beginning, and hasn't stopped being confusing. Imagine RMS saying, "I'm glad you asked that. By 'free', we don't mean free as in beer (nor what everyone means when they search for some kind of 'free software'); we mean free as in freedom. Which I will proceed to speak about for half an hour, now that you're engaged by this small bit of wordplay that you had no reason to suspect was wordplay." (Not that the ambiguity of "free software" was the cause of the Orange violation of Lasso. But, really, please stop calling it "free". Say "GPL", or some other license, or "libre", or anything other than "free".)

silisili 3y ago
If your slogan requires that you define a word or words in it, it's probably not a good slogan.
abricq 3y ago
To be fair, the second sentence is > Lasso is [...] licensed under the GNU General Public License
roydivision 3y ago
Ironically the French language makes the distinction where English doesn't: Libre - free as in 'You are free to do as you wish.' Gratuit - free as in 'I’ve got two free tickets for the film.'
- input_sh 3y ago
  I wouldn't call it ironic, I'm pretty sure there's two separate words for free in the vast majority of languages. English is the outlier, not the other way around.
- hk__2 3y ago
  English used to have "gratis", but it’s not used anymore.
3y ago

hyperthesis 3y ago

€650,000

keepamovin 3y ago

Seems it would have simply been prudent for company to have obtained a commercial OSS exemption. And if not offered to have requested one. Shady undertones that companies seem almost to want to use OSS without ever raising that commercial issue, as if sneaking around hoping the authors will never wise up to their rights—just to save a few bucks? Breach of contract.

iLoveOncall 3y ago

Licenses is really a cancer that the open source world never needed. If I release my code, it's with the license "do whatever the fuck you want". Otherwise I wouldn't release it.

nottorp 3y ago
There is a license for that, you know...
- oniony 3y ago
  One does not need a license for public domain.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    Pretty sure in some jurisdictions your public code is automatically copyright you. You may not care but the potential users will, to be protected from you chaging your mind in the future.
  - Jach 3y ago
    It's theoretically helpful to at least put in a no-warranties clause. But sqlite as maybe the most popular public domain project worldwide doesn't (instead having just the declaration and a blessing). I mostly settled on the Unlicense https://unlicense.org/ https://unlicense.org/ over just declaring 'public domain' or 'CC0' as a simple text blob to paste in, and in the event of a significant contribution from someone else, there's a simple text blurb to ask them to say 'yes' to in order to keep the code unencumbered.
  - pierat 3y ago
    And in some jurisdictions, like Germany, there is no such "public domain". In other jurisdictions, like England, museums can claim 'copyright' on antiquities, preventing 3d scanning and uploading.
- iLoveOncall 3y ago
  Yeah I know, and it should be the only option for open-source projects. The rest is just bringing politics where it doesn't belong.

nottorp 3y ago

One thing to note is that the library was also available for commercial licensing from the start. Makes it easy to demonstrate harm and establish damages. Now we need two more landmark cases: - one that awards damages for a pure GPL library that doesn't have commercial licensing available - one that exonerates some company that is LGPL compliant but is sued by the likes of Digia in hope of squeezing some money out of them

alwayslikethis 3y ago
For the first one, a forced release of source code is more important than the damages. I would also like to see a few AGPL cases to demonstrate its validity.
- tga_d 3y ago
  Not a lawyer, but IIUC it's never going to be the case that a GPL violation legally compels someone to release the resulting source code. There is no rule in copyright law that says you have to do that, and the GPL is just a license agreement at the end of the day, not a law. The best you can do is say you'll collect some fine for copyright violation or breach of contract if they don't release the source code, which was the issue of substance here too. As an analogy, if I have a plot of land with a sign that says "$1 million to enter", and someone enters without paying, the worst I can do is something like a trespassing charge, not collect $1 million because the sign said so.
  - hn_acker 3y ago
    > There is no rule in copyright law that says you have to do that, and the GPL is just a license agreement at the end of the day, not a law. The best you can do is say you'll collect some fine for copyright violation or breach of contract if they don't release the source code, which was the issue of substance here too. In the US, a GPL can be both a license and a contract at the same time [1]. The distribution rights granted by a GPL to the user are conditional on the user's compliance with the GPL. Contract law allows for punitive damages. Copyright law allows for 1. permanent injunctions against the defendant's continued use and/or distribution of the copyrighted work and 2. statutory damages xor actual damages. Every GPL requires distribution of source code under the same licensing terms to users already given the object code, so the party suing to enforce the GPL can request that the court compel distribution of the source code; the court can agree or disagree. The court can also decide to give the GPL violator the choice of 1. releasing the source code or 2. no longer distributing any copies or derivatives of the GPL'd software until the violator releases the source code or 3. whatever else. The court may impose a punitive fine in any case. [1] https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/may/16/vizio-remand-win/

JonChesterfield 3y ago

Surprised it's not mentioned already. OpenAI recently fed everything on GitHub into a language model which will cheerfully reproduce GPL'd software without license or attribution. I think that's the end of "free software" in the GPL sense. There is zero point to writing AGPL on a program if copying it into a language model and then back out into a text file without the license is a legitimate thing to do. I can't imagine this being countered effectively by lawsuit. Microsoft has built a weapon that they can use to disassemble open source software, I think they'll take the legal side of that seriously enough that GPL will be a distant memory by the time the courts conclude in either direction.

bayindirh 3y ago
People don't want to acknowledge it, because they deem that CoPilot and similar tools are too useful. I personally left the day CoPilot became GA. It's an open secret that xGPL licensed applications are fed into AI models, but opponents' voice is drowned under "We're doing something amazing, we don't need any permission. Plus, it's all fair use, anyway" choir. This also important for Source Available (for your eyes only) licenses. People don't care about them either. This whole AI thing is a boundless ethics violation in every category, yet people don't care, because "it's awesome!" for reasons I don't understand. Addendum: The reason why OpenAI has a non-profit part is to allow them to claim that they do non-profit research, which fair-use doctrine requires to work.
- whaleofatw2022 3y ago
  We have been conditioned for decades to allow an increasingly slippery slope of dubious behavior in the name of 'cool'
  - lo_zamoyski 3y ago
    Cool, or convenient.
    - prox 3y ago

shoubidouwah 3y ago

Naively, if a model is smart enough to spit / whitewash a bit of code, it is also smart enough to add attribution, isn't it? Wouldn't correct attribution be just a master prompt line away?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

picadores 3y ago

Up Next: Ambulance chasers offering there services to GPL projects.. the hunt begins.

keepamovin 3y ago
I don’t know… that’s kind of a negative way to see it. but I mean those auto DMCA takedown services already kind of do something like this right? Why shouldn’t IP violation checking as a service be a real thing that open developers can access? I think your framing of this is wrong. More empowerment and legal protection and enforcement for developers that underpin the ecosystem is a good thing.

iamstupid 3y ago

Doesn't this contradict EU law? Specifically this: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/why-viral-licensing-ghost https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/why-viral-l... I guess the fact that the software was also offered with a commercial license could be considered that it prejudices the legitimate interest of the author of the library. IANAL, but I think this might be a one-off (most GPL libraries do not have a commercial license alternative, so...).

brudgers 3y ago

Entr’Ouvert sued Orange in 2010 Your license choice matters based on your wherewithal to litigate upon bad actors. And your license choice segments good actors into those who will and won't use your software. The rest is theory.

sidewndr46 3y ago

From what I can tell this is a judgment against some sort of government services provider. So the damages will just end up being paid by the citizens via taxation.

alentred 3y ago
I don't think this is correct. The case was against Orange, which is a publicly traded company. I don't see how they could "invoice" it to their customers. Also, the service was rolled out ~14 years ago, I assume it was paid by this time. I guess they might increase the maintenance fee, though, to absorb this over time. But, most importantly, it is not relevant. If an entity is found guilty, they are supposed to cover the damages, whoever they or their customers are. Even it turns out being covered from my taxes in a legitimate way, I am glad to pay for it - this is how the justice is served, and we all get to keep the healthy judiciary and executive process.

williamDafoe 3y ago

Should be retitled. "pyrrhic victory might cover some of the legal costs"...

jiveturkey 3y ago

Have there been any other cases of GPL violations where damages were awarded? I found https://gpl-violations.org/news/ https://gpl-violations.org/news/ from another commentor but from there I count only 2 judgements and no mention of remedy.

kilolima 3y ago

For the first time, I can see the advantage of AI for a forum like HN. Have the AI scan the comments and generate a summary and links to show/hide, as an example: 80% of comments are pedantic. 10% of comments discuss the actual topic. 5% of comments are excited/hopeful. 30% of comments are probable astroturfing. 20% of comments are by users who are most likely millenials. 1% of comments are by former /.'ers. etc. Ideally this could just run locally and operate on any website as needed, like browser userscripts now.