http://opensource.com/law/14/7/lawsuit-threatens-break-new-ground-gpl-and-software-licensing-issues
This should be interesting to watch. It involves GPLv2, copyright conditions vs covenant, "distribution to independent contractors" vs "independent contractors are employees", and patents. My reading of the docs leads me to bet that, on the conditions vs covenant topic, the 'conditions' apply and there is copyright infringement, possibly throwing it back into federal court. On the "distribution to independent contractors" (triggering the distribution clause) vs "independent contractors are employees" (not a distribution) it seems that Ameriprise does not provide independent contractors with an office, phone, or benefits so they would not be considered employees. Thus, Ameriprise would likely have "distributed" the software. The patent issue is too complex for me to even make a guess. I'm not sure I even understand the concept of a software patent. Anyway, in my opinion, Ameriprise is likely to lose. But, in case it is not obvious, I'm not a lawyer. Tim _______________________________________________ Axiom-developer mailing list [email protected] https://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/axiom-developer
