|| On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 12:50:54 +0200 || Onno Timmerman onno.timmerman@s-p-a.be wrote:
ot> On Slashdot it stated that in Germany GPL isn't legal. ot> Is this true?
No.
The study they are referring to was paid by the VSI, a lobbying group for proprietary software and it is clearly based on very weak understanding of Free Software.
It for instance claims the SCSL was an "accepted Free Software license" and makes the typical beginners mistake of confusing Free Software, Shareware and Freeware.
There is a lot of better-researched studies clearly coming to the conclusion that the GPL is valid even if the clauses regarding warranty and liability are replaced by standard rulings due to German customer protection laws.
There will probably be some public statements about it soon.
One would wish that Slashdot had investigated the story before publishing it or at least asked someone who knew about the issues.
Regards, Georg