[Fsf-friends] Free Software is protected..

[CK Raju, Thrissur]

"In a major victory for the open source software movement, the federal
appeals court in Washington, D.C., has ruled that simply because a
software programmer may give his work away for free does not mean that
the software cannot be protected. The decision legitimizes the use of
commercial contracts for the distribution of computer software and
digital artistic works for the public good. The ruling also boosts the
open source movement by easing the concerns of large organizations
about relying on free software from developers who contributed to the
effort without pay. The ruling will also have implications for the
Creative Common license, which is used by organizations such as
Wikipedia and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for
distributing courseware and other materials. Creative Commons CEO
Joichi Ito says the ambiguity facing open source licensing has been
one of the obstacles hindering the movement. The appeals court
decision reversed a San Francisco federal court ruling over the
misappropriation of a software program by Kam Industries, a company
that publishes model train hobbyist software. Kam Industries owner
Matthew A. Katzer had sued free software developers for patent
infringement while the free software community argued that Katzer
failed to disclose earlier technology, or prior art, in his patent
filings. In March 2006, University of California, Berkeley professor
Robert G. Jacobsen filed a lawsuit against Katzer claiming that his
company was distributing a commercial software program that used code
from the Java Model Railroad Interface project, and was redistributing
the program without the credits required as part of the open source
license it was originally distributed under. The lower court ruled
that the terms of the open source contract were overly broad..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/technology/14commons.html

CK Raju