FSF defends user freedom in amicus brief submitted in Neo4j v. Suhy
Quoting: FSF defends user freedom in amicus brief submitted in Neo4j v. Suhy —
The FSF submitted its amicus brief in response to a pleading entitled "Appellees' Opposition to Motion for Leave to File Amicus Curiae Brief by Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (SFC) in Support of Defendants-Appellants" (the "Opposition"), in which Neo4j asked the Court of Appeals not to consider an amicus brief submitted by the SFC, which eloquently sought to point out the errors of the District Court in interpreting the GNU AGPLv3, Section 7.
"As our amicus brief explains, the FSF previously pushed Neo4j to correct their abuse of the AGPL," said Zoë Kooyman, executive director of the FSF. "Their misstatements and baseless arguments in their opposition have now compelled the FSF to step in again, to set the record straight regarding the FSF and its intent in drafting the GNU licenses -- to ensure the protection of software freedom."
Kooyman notes that the FSF's FAQ "Can I modify the GPL and make a modified license?" outlines the steps required to make modified versions of the GNU GPL, including removing specific sections of the license text and removing any references to its marks. These steps avoid confusing users of the GNU AGPLv3 and the FSF's trademarks included in it. Because the GNU licenses have free software's philosophy implicitly and explicitly ingrained in them, adding restrictions to a GNU license without using good general licensing practice as outlined in the FSF's FAQ results in an unauthorized derivative of the license.
Fudzilla:
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Court could shoot GNU
Database company Neo4j is attempting to convince the US legal system that "open source" means whatever they want it to mean.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is poised to review a California district court's ruling in Neo4j v. PureThink, a case that could redefine the eessence of open-source software.
Neo4j, not content with the standard GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3), sprinkled its secret sauce into the mix and modified the AGPLv3 with additional terms, effectively saying, "Sure, it's open source, but only on our terms."
This creative interpretation led to legal skirmishes over forks of its software, with Neo4j arguing that their bespoke restrictions couldn't be removed to revert to the standard AGPLv3.
PureThink’s John Mark Suhy decided that enough was enough and that "open source" should mean what it says on the tin. Suhy is now defending the principles of free and open-source software (FOSS) on his own, without the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) backing.
The Register:
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Free Software Foundation rides to defense of AGPLv3
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) on Monday backed a lone developer's brave effort to overturn a pivotal court ruling that threatens to undermine the AGPLv3 – the foundation's GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.
At stake is the future of not just the AGPLv3, but the FSF's widely used GNU Public License it is largely based on, and the software covered by those agreements. A core tenet of the GPL series is that free software remains free forever, and this is woven into the licenses' fine print. This ongoing legal battle is a matter of whether people can alter those licenses and redistribute code as they see fit in a non-free way, or if they must stick to the terms of an agreement that says the terms cannot be changed.