In France, won a lawsuit on non-compliance with the terms of the GPL license

An unprecedented decision in its history was made last week by a French Themis. The Paris Court of Appeal found Eud4 guilty of violating the free GNU GPL license. Edu4 distributed binary software builds for remote desktop management based on the VNC project without providing users with access to the source codes and deliberately removing from the program all references to its free origin. The lawsuit was filed by the French Vocational Education Association (AFPA).

In his address, Olivier Hugot, a lawyer at the Free Software Foundation’s (FSF) branch in France, said that the court’s decision should force companies to take the issue of compliance with free licenses more seriously. “Free software companies have received another reminder that not fulfilling the conditions of these licenses is a crime under French law.”
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The roots of this story go back to the beginning of 2000, when AFPA concluded a contract with Edu4 for the supply of equipment for the computer class. Some time later, it was found out that VNC software was installed on the computers, the source code of which Edu4 categorically refused to publish. After carrying out the necessary checks, to which the FSF Foundation has already connected, in 2002 a lawsuit was filed to protect the rights of developers and the discovery of source codes.

According to Loic Dachary, president of the French branch of the FSF, the uniqueness of the decision, among other things, is that the lawsuit was filed not by the developers themselves, but by ordinary users. “This is a fairly common misconception that only the software owner can assert their rights,” said Mr. Dachary. By its decision, the court showed the entire failure of the existence of such an opinion.