[HN Gopher] Stockfish vs. ChessBase for GPLv3 violation: court h...
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Stockfish vs. ChessBase for GPLv3 violation: court hearing soon
Author : acifani
Score : 177 points
Date : 2022-06-23 12:40 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (stockfishchess.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (stockfishchess.org)
| yewenjie wrote:
| I'm happy that after years of nonchalant abuse of GPL by
| ChessBase, Stockfish authors have finally taken the matter to the
| courts. I wish the damages claimed were more.
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Lets just hope they actually win (and judges actually
| understand the matter or people, who do advise), otherwise this
| is a disaster.
| dantondwa wrote:
| It's not a disaster, because in Germany there is Roman law,
| as opposed to America's common law. It's different and it
| makes a sentence something much less disastrous.
| nceqs3 wrote:
| German courts don't have the best reputation when it comes to
| technical subject matter.
| Vespasian wrote:
| There were already several cases (over the last couple of
| decades) in Germany where the GPL was part of the
| proceedings.
|
| They understood the license just fine back then
| xxs wrote:
| >German courts
|
| compared to what? in the case of the "round corners", the
| Germans ruled in favor of not-infringing, while the US ones
| awarded Apple $1B+...
| imglorp wrote:
| American courts are an extremely low bar for comparison.
| nimbius wrote:
| how about the case of Christoph Hellwig vs VMware for
| stealing vmklinux under the GPL. german courts basically
| dismissed him _twice_ for not being procedural, which
| gave VMWare ample time to dodge a GPL bullet and remove
| the code from their kernel without admitting any fault or
| wrongdoing.
|
| https://sfconservancy.org/news/2019/apr/02/vmware-no-
| appeal/
| adolph wrote:
| That was a design patent not a case of technical
| implementation.
|
| _In the United States, a design patent is a form of
| legal protection granted to the ornamental design of a
| functional item. Design patents are a type of industrial
| design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture,
| beverage containers (Fig. 1) and computer icons are
| examples of objects that are covered by design patents._
|
| [...]
|
| _A US design patent covers the ornamental design for an
| object having practical utility. An object with a design
| that is substantially similar to the design claimed in a
| design patent cannot be made, used, copied or imported
| into the United States without the permission of the
| patent holder. The copy does not have to be exact for the
| patent to be infringed. It only has to be substantially
| similar._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_patent
| ajnin wrote:
| It's going to be interesting because it's in Germany, which is in
| Europe. There's been a recent court case in France that ruled
| that copyright claims based on the GPL were invalid because it is
| a contract, and you can't claim both copyright and a contract on
| something, so it should be dealt with in civil contract court.
| (Or in other words, granting a license like the GPL invalidates
| all copyright claims you might have in the future!)
|
| The article is quite light on details, I wonder on what exact
| grounds they filed their claim.
| sva_ wrote:
| I think the case you're thinking of was in France:
|
| https://thehftguy.com/2020/09/15/french-judge-rules-gpl-lice...
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > you can't claim both copyright and a contract on something,
|
| That makes no sense to me. Licensing copyrighted work is pretty
| standard, and it must be in France too? The GPL is a license,
| which is indeed a contract. But surely people license (enter
| into a contract between copyright holder and user which grants
| certain allowed uses) copyrighted work in France routinely?
| Vespasian wrote:
| This is a civil case if I am not mistaken. Earlier cases in
| Germany where decided in favour of the obligations of the GPL.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I can't even imagine what that means. How do stock photos work
| in France?
| yellow_lead wrote:
| So both cases are in Europe?
| omega3 wrote:
| How were they able to acquire the source code? Is it based on
| this reporting?
| https://groups.google.com/g/fishcooking/c/DygaIdBvJm0/m/cjtM...
|
| Even the makefile had a reference to stockfish.
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(page generated 2022-06-23 23:02 UTC)