Copygood
Open source software is a type that is distributed freely, with code available, and explicitly invites others to copy and reproduce and modify and improve upon the code. It is distributed under a GNU license, which simply spells out the rules about using the code but making your new code also available. It is the computer folks’ counterpart to the Creative Commons licenses.
So here’s what happened: a company called Monsoon Multimedia used an opensource program to create a new product. But they didn’t publish the source code, as required by the GNU license under which they acquired the original code. They were asked to publish it, but never did.
So what now? Free software, so everyone owns it and can do whatever they want with it, right?
Wrong.
The software has not been dedicated to the public domain. It retains it’s copyright. But the software has been licensed to other users under specific guidelines, which Monsoon failed to follow. Which means that Monsoon infringed the copyright on the software. In other words, it did something it had not been given the right to do.
So Monsoon has now been named in a copyright infringement lawsuit.
Copyright law being used to keep opensource software open and available. There you go.
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