2002-02-26-MySQL
Free Software Foundation Free Software
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FSF Lawyer and Board Member Serves as Expert Witness in Lawsuit
Related to GNU GPL
FOR RELEASE at 16:00 EST on Tuesday, February, 26, 2002
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Tuesday, February, 26, 2002
Free Software Foundation
Bradley M. Kuhn
pr@gnu.org
+1-617-542-5942
http://www.gnu.org
Eben Moglen, General Counsel to the Free Software Foundation (FSF),
will testify as an expert witness in the Progress Software
Corporation vs. MySQL AB case currently pending in United States
District Court in Massachusetts. The current focus of this case is a
preliminary injunction sought by MySQL AB concerning a violation of
the GNU General Public License (GPL) by Progress Software Corp.
Progress lost the right to distibute MySQL due to a violation of the
GNU GPL. Progress distributed a proprietary software component,
Gemini, that combined with the GPL'ed MySQL database system. Gemini
was linked statically with the MySQL system to form a single binary
program. Many times, the FSF has enforced the GNU GPL in such
situations, when our copyrights were at stake. We do such enforcement
in a confidential setting without the need of court action. Since
Progress distributes no FSF-copyrighted code, the FSF is not a party
in the case; however, the FSF takes a strong position that Progress is
indeed in violation of the GNU GPL.
Moglen said: "In our minds, Progress Software Corp. has committed a
garden-variety violation of the GNU GPL. We expect to prevail as we
assist MySQL AB in their enforcement action. We are quite surprised
that Progress has brought the action this far."
The preliminary injunction hearing will take place at 2:00 PM on
Wednesday, February, 27, 2002 at the Federal Court House in Boston,
Massachusetts in the court of Judge Patti B. Saris.
Moglen's full affidavit in this case is available at
http://www.fsf.org/press/mysql-affidavit.html. Moglen's
full essay about enforcing the GNU GPL is available at
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html.
Eben Moglen holds a PhD. in history and a J.D. from Yale University.
Moglen is currently a professor of law and legal history at Columbia
University Law School, and serves as general counsel for the Free Software
Foundation.
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute
computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as
in freedom) software---particularly the GNU operating system and its
GNU/Linux variants---and free documentation for free software. The FSF
also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of
freedom in the use of software. Their web site, located at
http://www.gnu.org, is an important source of information about
GNU/Linux. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA.