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{% block subtitle %}GPL Compliance Project For Linux Developers - {% endblock %}

{% block submenuselection %}VMwareLawsuitFAQ{% endblock %}

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<h1>Frequently Asked Questions about Christoph Hellwig's VMware Lawsuit</h1>

<p>Conservancy maintains this

  <a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware

  in Germany over alleged GPL violations on Linux</a> as a service to the

  Free Software community, and in particular, the copyleft community.  Conservancy

  realizes this lawsuit generates many questions and interest

  from the community.  Legal counsel (both Conservancy's own, and

  Christoph's lawyer, Till Jaeger) correctly advise us to limit our public

  comments regarding specific details of the case while litigation remains

  pending in court.  Nevertheless, Conservancy, as a

  non-profit charity serving the public good, seeks to be as transparent as

  possible.  If you have additional questions you'd like to see answered

  here, please <a href="mailto:info@sfconservancy.org">email

  &lt;info@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>, but understand that we may often need

 took a clear and hard line with Conservancy stating that they would not

 comply with the GPL on Linux and argued (in our view, incorrectly) that they

 were already in compliance.</p>

 <p>Conservancy in parallel informed Christoph fully of the details of the

   Linux violation on Christoph's copyrights, and based on Conservancy's

   findings, Christoph began his own investigation and confirmed

   Conservancy's compliance conclusions.  Christoph then began his own

   enforcement effort with legal representation from Till Jaeger.  Christoph has

   been unable to achieve compliance, either, through his negotiations in

   2014.  VMware's last offer was a proposal for a settlement agreement that VMware would

   only provide if Christoph signed an NDA, and Christoph chose (quite

 <p>Thus, this lawsuit comes after years of negotiations by Conservancy to

 achieve compliance — negotiations that ended in an outright refusal by

 VMware's lawyers to comply.  Those events were then followed by a year of

   work by Christoph and Till to achieve compliance in a separate action.</p>

 <p>Simply put, Conservancy and Christoph fully exhausted every possible

 non-litigation strategy and tactic to convince VMware to do the right thing

 before filing this litigation.</p>

  </dd>    

  <dt>Can you explain further how VMware incorporated code from Linux into

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<p><a href="/donate">Even More Ways to Donate</a></p>

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<div style="align:left;width:80%;">

  <h1><img class="appeal-header" alt="Become a Conservancy Supporter!" src="/img/conservancy-supporter-header.png"/></h1>

<p>Software Freedom Conservancy is an essential organization to free and

open source software. We are the home of over

<a href="/members/current/">30 projects</a> like 

<a href="http://git-scm.org">Git</a>,

<a href="http://inkscape.org">Inkscape</a>, <a href="http://samba.org">Samba</a>,

<a href="http://winehq.org">Wine</a>, <a href="http://www.seleniumhq.org/">Selenium</a>, the <a href="/linux-compliance/">GPL Compliance Project for Linux

Developers</a>, <a href="http://pypy.org">PyPy</a> and

<a href="http://sugarlabs.org/">Sugar Labs</a> just to name a few. Conservancy is a "fiscal sponsor plus",

providing everything that our projects need in a nonprofit. We help our

projects defend their trademarks, manage their assets, handle donations,

improve their community management, manage risk and assist them with all

legal needs they may have. While we do receive a portion of the revenue

donated to our projects, we keep that number low enough that it doesn't

even pay for a single staff member. <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">Help us</a> show that you care about

community-focused free software and help us be able to continue our

charitable work. Donating to Conservancy is a great non-technical way to

contribute to the cause.</p>

<img alt="*** The Conservancy T-Shirt that Supporters Receive ***" class="appeal" src="/img/conservancy-t-shirt.jpg"/>

<p>For the first time, we're launching a Supporter

program. For <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">an annual donation of $120</a>, you can

this is out of reach, please donate at whatever level you can - it makes a

big difference to us to know that you <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">support us</a>, and a little goes a long

way.</p>

<p>In addition to supporting our projects,

<ul>

<li>we share our expertise across communities. We speak at many

conferences, and publish materials to increase understanding about the

organizational, community and legal issues around free and open source

software. We advocate for free and open source software and provide

education around that mission.  We form partnerships across our

    software.</li></ul>

<img class="appeal-footer" alt="*" src="/img/conservancy-supporter-heart.png"/>

<p>As an organization, we try to do do everything transparently; even 

our

<a 

href="https://gitorious.org/conservancy/policies/source/master:">

internal policies</a> are published and available for scrutiny.</p>

<p>Please <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">join our Supporter program</a> and spread software freedom!</p>

<div class="supporter-type-selector">

<hr/>

  <strong>Become a Supporter Now:</strong>  <a id="annualSelector" href="#annual">Annual</a> | <a id="monthlySelector" href="#monthly">Monthly</a></div>

<div id="annual" class="supporter-type-selection">

<h3>Join as an Annual Supporter</h3>

<a id="annual"></a>

<form id="annual" class="supporter-form" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" name="supporter">

<div class="supporter-form-inputs">

            <input type="hidden" name="return" value="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/thank-you.html" />

            <input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_xclick" />

            <input type="hidden" name="business" value="supporter@sfconservancy.org" />

            <input type="hidden" name="item_name" value="Conservancy Supporter, Annual" />

<div id="donate-box" class="toggle-unit"><h1 class="toggle-content">Support

    Now!</h1></div>

<h3>Support GPL Compliance Now!</h3>

<p>Support our GPL compliance work now &amp; <strong>donation counts double!</strong></p>

$<span id="fundraiser-so-far">0</span>

of $<span id="fundraiser-goal">50,000</span> match met.<br/>

<div id="progressbar" style="height:20px;"><span id="fundraiser-percentage" style="float:right; align:center; margin-right:40%"></span></div>

<p>Donate now via PayPal:

<!-- PayPal start -->

<form action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post" target="_top">

<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">

<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="4ZKJN4F9BMFAS">

<input type="image" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif" style="border:0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">

<img alt="" style="border:0" src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">

</form>

<!-- PayPal end -->

<p>Or, <a href="/supporter/#annual"><strong>become a Conservancy

      Supporter</strong></a>.</p>

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<div style="align:left;width:80%;">

    <div id="container">

         <div id="sidebar" class="{% block submenuselection %}other{% endblock %}">

            <h2>Our GPL {% block category %}Compliance{% endblock %} Work</h2>

            <ul>

            <li class="VMwareLawsuitAppeal"><a href="/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-appeal.html">Stand Up For GPL!</a></li>

            <li><a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">VMware Lawsuit: Press Release</a></li>

            <li class="VMwareLawsuitFAQ"><a href="/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html">

            <li class="AboutCompliance"><a href="/linux-compliance/about.html">About GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers</a></li>

            </ul>

         </div>

               <div id="mainContent">{% block content %}{% endblock %}

               </div>

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