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Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) Loses Millions of Dollars in Battle Over Licensing
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Software Freedom Conservancy ☛ Judge Issues Tentative Ruling in Favor of SFC [Ed: Using up millions to get source code that quite likely nobody will use]
Today, in the Superior Court of California in Orange County, Judge Sandy N. Leal will consider Software Freedom Conservancy's motion for summary adjudication in the Vizio case. The tentative ruling, issued this morning, rules in favor of SFC that Vizio has a duty to provide SFC with the complete and corresponding copylefted source code to the TV it purchased. Tentative rulings are not final; they are issued by the court to indicate how the judge is leaning on the issue, so that oral arguments at the hearing are most effective. The hearing on this issue will take place today, at 10am Pacific time. Information on how to attend is below.
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The Register UK ☛ Judge hints Vizio TV buyers may have rights to source code licensed under GPL
Electronics biz Vizio may be required by a California court to provide source code for its SmartCast TV software, which is allegedly based on open source code licensed under the GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1.
The legal complaint from the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) seeks access to the SmartCast source code so that Vizio customers can make changes and improvements to the platform, something that ought to be possible for code distributed under the GPL. On Thursday, California Superior Court Judge Sandy Leal issued a tentative ruling in advance of a hearing, indicating support for part of SFC's legal challenge.
The tentative ruling is not a final decision, but it signals the judge's inclination to grant the SFC's motion for summary adjudication, at least in part.
Also here:
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Judge Signals Win for Software Freedom Conservancy in Vizio GPL Case
A California judge has tentatively sided with Software Freedom Conservancy in its GPL case over Vizio’s SmartCast TVs, but the final outcome of this week’s hearing is still pending.