{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}

{% block submenuselection %}VMwareLawsuitAppeal{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h2>The time has come to stand up for the GPL.</h2>

<p><em>In March 2015, Conservancy <a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">announced Christoph Hellwig's

    lawsuit against VMware in Germany</a>.  In July 2016,

    we <a href="/news/2016/aug/09/vmware-appeal/">announced that Christoph

    Support Conservancy's and Christoph's efforts in this area

    by <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">becoming a Conservancy

    supporter</a> or <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">donating via

    the link on the right</a>.</em></p>

<p>We were told to ask nicely and repeatedly, so we did.</p>

<p>We asked allies to help us make contact in friendly and professional

  ways.</p>

<p>Everyone asked us to give companies as many chances as possible and as

  much help as possible to comply with copyleft, so we did.</p>

<p>We've worked for years to help VMware comply with the GPL, but they

refuse. Negotiations broke down for the last time when they insisted on an 

NDA just to discuss settlement terms!</p>

<p>Christoph is among the most active developers of Linux.  As of Feburary 

19, 2015, Christoph has contributed 279,653 lines of code to the Linux kernel, 

and ranks 20th among the 1,340 developers involved in the latest 3.19 kernel 

release.  Christoph also

ranks 4th among those who have reviewed third-party source code, tirelessly

corrected and commented on other developers' contributions.  Christoph