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

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

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<h1>The time has come to stand up for the GPL.</h1>

    lawsuit against VMware in Germany</a>.  Help us meet our anonymous match to 

    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">donate 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

licenses his code to the public under the terms of the GPL for practical and

ideological reasons.  VMware, a company with net revenue of over $1 billion

and over 14,000 employees, ignored Christoph's choice.  They took Christoph's

code from Linux and modified it to work with their own kernel without releasing

source code of the resulting complete work.  This is precisely the kind of

activity Christoph and other kernel developers seek to prevent by choosing

the GPL.  The GPL was written to prevent this specific scenario!</p>

<h3>This is a matter of principle.</h3>

<p>Free and open source software is everywhere and in everything; yet our

  software freedom is constantly eroded.</p>

<p>We want companies to incorporate our software into new products, but there

are a few simple rules.  Copylefted free software is so prevalent because

there's no way a company can compete without using a significant amount of

free software to bring products to market in reasonable time. They get so

much benefit from our work.  Allowing the whole community to review, use,

improve and work with the code seems very little to ask in return.  Copyleft

also ensures competitors cannot undercut those who contribute.  Without active enforcement, the GPL is

effectively no different from a non-copyleft license.</p>

<p>What point is there for companies to make sure that they're compliant if

there are no consequences when the GPL is violated? Many will continue to