After a five-year struggle in US Federal District Court, Robert Jacobson recently prevailed in his copyright infringement claim against Matthew Katzer as a result of Katzer's alleged misappropriation of open source code from Jacobson's Java Model Railroad Interface project.
You can read all of the story in more detail at ConsortiumInfo.org. The end result is a huge win for open source developers as a result of three key findings by the District Court:
There are some mitigating circumstances in that the results in this case are not yet dispositive of all future violations, as the ruling of a US District Court is limited to absolute applicability only in its geographic district. The concern is that a Federal Appellate Court (including the US Supreme Court) could overrule or otherwise reverse this decision. Worse yet would be another US District Court coming to a different conclusion with a similar set of facts.
But for now, FOSS developers can rest a little easier knowing that their creations are protected by copyright law.
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