software from VMware's website.  Conservancy strongly suggests that you review these

  terms in great detail with the assistance of your own legal counsel before

  downloading the software and/or engaging in the process that Conservancy

  discusses above.</p>

<dt id="similarity-analysis">How do you know Christoph's code is present in

  VMware's work?</dt>

<dd>Conservancy

published <a href="/copyleft-compliance/vmware-code-similarity.html">its

comparison analysis between Christoph's code and VMware's code</a>. This

particular analysis uses a two step process: (a) use Linux's public Git logs

to find Christoph's contributions from Christoph, and (b) use a widely

accepted and heavily academically cited tool, CCFinderX, to show that VMware

copied Christoph's code into their product.</dd>

<dt id="appeal">I heard that Christoph's case was dismissed.  Is that

  true?</dt>

  <dd>There was a ruling in July 2016 in the Hamburg District Court, which

    dismissed Christoph's case against VMware.  The ruling concerned German

    evidence law and the Court did not rule on the merits of the case. The

    ruling centered around German evidentary rules related to documenting

    Christoph's contributions that appear in VMware's product.

    In <a href="http://bombadil.infradead.org/~hch/vmware/2016-08-09.html">a

    statement on his website</a>, Christoph Hellwig announced that he will

    appeal the ruling. Christoph also published

    (in <a href="http://bombadil.infradead.org/~hch/vmware/Urteil_2016-07-08.pdf">German</a>

    and <a href="http://bombadil.infradead.org/~hch/vmware/Judgment_2016-07-08.pdf">English)

    the Court's ruling</a> which explains why the materials submitted did not

    satisfy German evidence rules — despite publicly available

    information in Linux's Git repositories. In addition, the Court chose not

    to seek expert testimony.</dd>

  <dt id="statements-of-support">Have others issued statements of support about this action?</dt>

  <dd>Various individuals and groups have publicly stated their support for

    Conservancy's and Hellwig's actions in this matter.  They include:

    <ul>

        <li><a href="http://www.april.org/en/statement-support-software-freedom-conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit">APRIL</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://fsf.org/news/conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit">Free

            Software Foundation</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150331-01.en.html">Free

            Software Foundation Europe</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://www.gnome.org/news/2015/03/gnome-supports-gpl-compliance-through-vmware-suit-2/">GNOME Foundation</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://opensource.org/node/739">Open Source Initiative</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://samba.org/samba/news/announcements/2015-03-06_vmware_lawsuit.html">The

            Samba Team</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://sourceforge.net/p/swig/news/2015/03/defending-the-gpl/">The

        SWIG Project</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/573530001758294016">Matthew Garrett, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/#glikely">Grant Likely, Linux Kernel Engineer</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://mina86.com/2015/03/11/the-time-has-come-to-stand-up-for-the-gpl/">Michal Nazarewicz, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/635624/">Luis R. Rodriguez (aka mcgrof), Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/635855/">Wolfram Sang, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://twitter.com/josh_triplett/status/573543072929198083">Josh

        Triplett, Linux Developer</a></li>

        <li><a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/635617/">Rik van Riel, Linux Developer</a></li>

    </ul>

  </dd>

<dt>I

see <a href="https://fsf.org/news/conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit">FSF's

statement of support</a>, but why

isn't <a href="https://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance">FSF enforcing</a> in

this case?</dt>

<dd>While FSF are the authors and license steward of the GNU GPL, it's up to

the copyright holder to enforce GPL.  VMware created an operating system by

combining parts of the kernel named Linux with their own proprietary code,

and then added BusyBox to provide the userspace operating system components.

As such, ESXi is not

a <a href="https://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html">traditional GNU/Linux

system</a>.  FSF has many copyrights of its own, but these are almost

exclusively on various parts of the GNU system, not on the kernel, Linux.  As

such, FSF probably does not have copyright interests available to directly

enforce the GPL regarding the primary issue in this case.</dd>

  <dt><em>I</em> care about copyleft and the GPL.  How can I help?</dt>

  <dd>Conservancy needs <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">your immediate financial

  support to proceed with this litigation</a>.  Litigation costs are

  unpredictable, and this lawsuit may take years to resolve.  Conservancy is

  prepared to fund this case through its conclusion, but we can only do so

  with <a href="/supporter/"><em>your</em> support</a>.  If you are an

  individual who supports copyleft and wants to see it defended, please

  donate now.  And, if you make a public statement of support, please email the

  URL

  to <a href="mailto:info@sfconservancy.org">&lt;info@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>,

  as we'd like to include representative selection of supportive statements above.</dd>

  <dt>Why is the case in Germany?</dt>

  <dd>Copyright infringement claims can be brought anywhere that distribution

  of the copyrighted works occur.  VMware distributes ESXi throughout the

  world, but Germany is close to Christoph's home and his lawyer was

  available to do the litigation work there.  Finally, historically,

  Mr. Jaeger's cases in Germany have usually achieved worldwide compliance on

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<h1>Software Freedom Conservancy</h1>

<p>Software Freedom Conservancy is a not-for-profit charity that

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