[lugm.org] Fwd: [FTF-Legal] Mildly GPL related case in Supreme Court of Mauritius

Tue Jun 28 14:40:19 UTC 2011

we can also make the applicant aware that we are keen to help the defendant

On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 6:39 PM, Ronny R. <redoverlord at gmail.com> wrote:
> hello
>
> my opinion is that
> 1. we are not lawyers
> 2. sending a letter to the court is of no use as we dont have any locus standi
> 3. we better advise defendant to counter affidavit the one of the
> applicant and then we can be of some help
> but please note that in no case can we act as expert og the GPL laws,
> we can provide the text and let the lawyers of the defendant analyse
> and show to the court.
>
> Cheers
>
> Ronny
>
> On Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 6:26 PM, Aadil Noorkhan <aadil at lavabit.com> wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> The fraudulent statements in the affidavit are disturbing indeed.
>>
>> We should inform the Supreme Court and both parties of the misleading
>> statements via email and a letter, backed by solid evidence and signed by
>> the LUGM managing committee, or simply the president.
>>
>> If no response is received then we sent the letter to the press.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Aadil.
>>
>> On 6/28/2011 5:24 PM, Avinash Meetoo wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> I have just received this email from Philip Hands in the UK referring to
>>> a case currently in the Supreme Court of Mauritius. It would seem that
>>> the two parties involved have different opinions on what an open source
>>> license really is, more specifically the GPL. Someone called Harald
>>> Welte has written a post on his blog on this matter.
>>>
>>> A few months ago, someone called me at work asking me about what the GPL
>>> really means but I am not sure whether he is one of the parties concerned.
>>>
>>> What do you think?
>>>
>>> Avinash
>>>
>>> ---
>>> From: *Philip Hands* <phil at hands.com <mailto:phil at hands.com>>
>>> Date: Tue, Jun 28, 2011 at 4:01 PM
>>> Subject: [FTF-Legal] Mildly GPL related case in Supreme Court of Mauritius
>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Avinash,
>>>
>>> I'm forwarding this to your mailing list in the hope that someone on
>>> the list knows how to inform your Supreme Court properly.  It wasn't
>>> clear to me if that was a subscriber-only list though, so I'm also
>>> sending it to you direct, as you appear to to be the founder of the
>>> LUG. I hope that's OK.
>>>
>>> Here is the main point from the attached mail:
>>>
>>> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/27/
>>>
>>> in which you can see that someone from http://www.linuxsolutions.mu/
>>> seem to be claiming (under oath) that there is no difference between GPL
>>> licensed software, and Public Domain.
>>>
>>> I'm sure that any feedback that you have would be welcome, either on the
>>> ftf-legal-bounces at fsfeurope.org <mailto:ftf-legal-bounces at fsfeurope.org>
>>> mailing list, or perhaps if you get in
>>> touch with Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org
>>> <mailto:laforge at gnumonks.org>>, and he can then update
>>> his blog (of course, you're welcome to reply to me as well).
>>>
>>> Cheers, Phil.
>>>
>>> P.S. FYI I'm a long-time Debian Developer, and have hosted the Debian UK
>>> mirror (ftp.uk.debian.org <http://ftp.uk.debian.org>) since the mid 90's
>>> -- and I make occasional
>>> contributions to the Free Software Foundation Europe mailing list where
>>> this issue came up.
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org <mailto:laforge at gnumonks.org>>
>>> To: ftf-legal at fsfeurope.org <mailto:ftf-legal at fsfeurope.org>
>>> Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:58:53 +0200
>>> Subject: [FTF-Legal] Mildly GPL related case in Supreme Court of Mauritius
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> since I don't expect everyone here is following my blog, I would like to
>>> post a small notice here: http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/27/
>>>
>>> The case is mostly about whether or not a freelancing contractor
>>> (defendant) has broken and NDA and anti-competition clauses he signed
>>> with the plaintiff.
>>>
>>> I don't understand all the details as I have only some of the
>>> documents, but for whatever reasons a "duly authorized marketing and
>>> sales executive" of the company ceritifed under oath that "open-source
>>> software like "Linux" have no copyright restrictions, which in effect
>>> puts no restrictions on their user or distribution".  And furthermore,
>>> "any work derived from the open source software [...] becomes the
>>>  ownership of the applicant"
>>>
>>> I don't really see how this is cloesly related to the heart of the case,
>>> but I still think it's devastating to see such an argument be made in
>>> front of the highest court of any (albeit small) country.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure what can be done by the outside world (e.g. us) to help the
>>> court understand that Linux as well as Asterisk are very well
>>> copyrighted works, and that at least Linux is only available under
>>> GPLv2, which has a number of conditions on its distribution.
>>>
>>> If anyone is interested in this, I have some more documetns that the
>>> defendant has permitted me to share (not sure if he has authority to
>>> permit that, but well...).
>>>
>>> (and in case you wonder, Mauritius has signed the Berne convention in
>>>  1989).
>>>
>>> Specifically if anyone has an interest to send some kind of
>>> letter/amicus curiae to the court clarifying the issue, it would be
>>> great.  Apparently there are arguments on the lines of "you cannot just
>>> download the GPL text from the internet and claim it is valid" etc.
>>> The Judge seemed to describe himself as 'computer illiterate'.
>>>
>>> Maybe there are also some existing English legal publications that one
>>> could DHL/FedEx/UPS to the court ;)
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>        Harald
>>> --
>>> - Harald Welte <laforge at gnumonks.org <mailto:laforge at gnumonks.org>>
>>> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/
>>>
>>> ============================================================================
>>> "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
>>>                                                  (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch.
>>> A6)
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> FTF-Legal mailing list
>>> FTF-Legal at fsfeurope.org <mailto:FTF-Legal at fsfeurope.org>
>>> https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/ftf-legal
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> |)|  Philip Hands [+44 (0)20 8530 9560
>>> <tel:%5B%2B44%20%280%2920%208530%209560>] http://www.hands.com/
>>> |-| HANDS.COM <http://HANDS.COM> Ltd. http://www.uk.debian.org/
>>> |(|  10 Onslow Gardens, South Woodford, London  E18 1NE  ENGLAND
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> *Avinash Meetoo**
>>> **Managing-Director of Knowledge Seven*
>>>
>>> Call me on 493-9394 (Mobile) or 464-7446 (Office)
>>> I am on my portal <http://www.avinashmeetoo.com/>, LinkedIn
>>> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/avinashmeetoo>, Twitter
>>> <http://twitter.com/AvinashMeetoo> and Facebook
>>> <http://www.facebook.com/avinashmeetoo>
>>> Visit Knowledge Seven <http://www.knowledge7.com/> and our other sister
>>> websites <http://www.knowledge7.com/page/internet-services>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> __________________________________________________________
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>>
>>
>> __________________________________________________________
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>>
>