German Court Rules Skype in Violation of GNU GPL

In Germany, Skype has been found guilty in violation of the GPL. The court ruled that Skype had violated several articles of the GNU GPL version 2.0.

• Skype did not attach a copy of the GNU GPL license.
• Skype shipped the GPL software in object code.
• Skype did not offer the source code.

Also at the core of the case was SMC Networks.  SMC Networks provides a wireless phone to Skype.  The embedded OS of the phone happens to be Linux.

The legal proceedings were initiated by Harald Welte. Harald Welete is the founder of gpl-violations.org. gpl-violations.org was started to raise the awareness about past and present violations of the GNU General Public License. Its main purpose is the gathering, maintaining and distributing information about people who use and distribute GPL licensed free software without adhering to the license terms.

Over the years since its inception in late 2003, gpl-violations.org has initiated over a hundred successful legal actions against companies such as D-Link, Gigabyte and Asus.

The Skype rulings from the German court were released  (in German) on ifross.org by Dr Till Jaeger.  According to gpl-violatons.org,  Dr. Till Jaeger and his staff from JBB Rechtsanwälte, a Berlin and Munich-based law firm are handling the legal aspects of all gpl-violations.org cases.

ifrOSS is the Institute for Legal Questions on Free and Open Source Software in Germany which was cofounded by Dr. Jaeger. ifrOSS was founded in 2000 to perform research on legal questions regarding the Open Source model. ifrOSS has been involved in several legislative projects on the national and European level, such as the implementation of the EU Information Society Directive in Germany, the German “Copyright License Act” and the discussion on the proposal for a directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.