From the ‘don’t bet against the GPL ‘ files:
Guess what? The GPL is not in violation of any type of German anti-trust laws. VoIP vendor Skype had argued in a German court that they didn’t have to adhere to the letter of the open source GPL license, but the German court has now ruled against them.
Harald Welte (who has been on a seemingly one man crusade in Europe against Skype) reported on his blog that:
In the end, the court hinted twice that if it was to judge about the case,
Skype would not have very high chances. After a short break, Skype decided to
revoke their appeals case and accept the previous judgement of the lower court
(Landgericht Muenchen I, the decision was in my favor) as the final judgement.
This means that the previous court decision is legally binding to Skype, and we
have successfully won what has probably been the most lengthy and time
consuming case so far.
So the lesson here is simple. Whether you’re Verizon in the US or Skype in Germany, if you use GPL licensed code, then the terms of the GPL license apply to you.