Free software Germany GPL

Wouter Vanden Hove wouter.vanden.hove at pandora.be
Wed Jul 2 15:19:04 UTC 2003


Is there a relation or communication between FSF Europe and ifrOSS?
http://www.ifross.de/
There are some publications there, even in English. 

Aren't there laws in some countries that require that the conditions on
using a product needs to be in the official language of that country, so
that customers understand those conditions if they buy the product?

Wouldn't this create a need for *official* translations of the GPL to
German, French,... ? 


Wouter Vanden Hove
http://www.opencursus.be



Op wo 02-07-2003, om 13:15 schreef Georg C. F. Greve:
>  || On Wed, 02 Jul 2003 12:50:54 +0200
>  || Onno Timmerman <onno.timmerman at 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



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