[General] Open Source Wins Landmark Legal Validation

[Mohammed Al-Essa]

Open source developers now have newly clarified protection, thanks to
an appeals court ruling over the validity of their licenses. A judge
with U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Wednesday
that programmers who "engage in open source licensing" and copyright
their work do "have the right to control the modification and
distribution" of their products.

The case draws clear lines around what had until now been uncertain
territory. It all started in 2006, when a developer at Java Model
Railroad Interface claimed someone had used part of his open source
code in another product without crediting his company -- something
that was required in the Artistic License under which the software was
covered. A judge initially said that lack of attribution did not
constitute copyright infringement, even though it was a violation of
the license agreement. JMRI appealed, and this week's ruling is the
result.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/64164.html