Stockfish vs ChessBase hearing a “meh” affair

[dkappe]

1. We’ve established that the Houdini “violation” was not a violation by ChessBase

Who established that?

Copyright infringement is not the same as a license violation.

CB (unknowingly) infringed the copyright on SF by distributing an SF-derived Houdini.
But there is no way that CB was somehow bound by the terms of the GPL, as I explained.

All you need to do is read. Volume of posts by you, Andy and noob won’t improve your arguments.

[Sopel]

1. We’ve established that the Houdini “violation” was not a violation by ChessBase

Who established that?

Copyright infringement is not the same as a license violation.

CB (unknowingly) infringed the copyright on SF by distributing an SF-derived Houdini.
But there is no way that CB was somehow bound by the terms of the GPL, as I explained.

All you need to do is read. Volume of posts by you, Andy and noob won’t improve your arguments.

I'd rather trust the court's ruling, thanks. See edit on previous message.

[syzygy]

More importantly, there is no way that CB violated the GPLv3 license in that case. Houdart did not give it to them under the GPLv3, and CB did not sell it under the GPLv3. GPLv3 played no role there.

This is as funny as justifying selling whatever you downloaded from torrents, whoever gave you those did not have a licence attached, so you are free to sell them and take no responsibility. You should definitely try.

Copyright infringement is not the same as a license violation.

CB (unknowingly) infringed the copyright on SF by distributing an SF-derived Houdini.
But there is no way that CB was somehow bound by the terms of the GPL, as I explained.

Although I doubt whether they (unknowingly) did it, it is irrelevant. Whatever "license" they believed to have that gave them the rights to distribute Houdini is invalid, and under GPL, they are clearly made aware of the violation. Proof of continued violation can be established post curing period due to the fact that to this day, their Houdini distribution is still not GPL-compliant, now that's a criminal offense. You don't need a court to terminate GPL, BTW.

Is Chessbase still selling an SF-derived Houdini? Their website does not seem to show it, but maybe I am looking in the wrong place.

From whoever was present in the hearing, I believe the impression was that the court does not seem to have any problem with plaintiffs establishing their facts, but more of a confusion on whether this GPL termination is "permanent" permanent, like if some future SF is completely rewritten without any code from the plaintiffs, is that still considered a derivative work and the termination is still in effect, I think that's a reasonable argument and in my opinion a practical solution without bothering the court would be that CB to refrain from distributing any SF and sell their own Fritz. What really is so important that CB must distribute SF anyways? It seems to contradict their narrative of originality at least. Note that in any case their use of the software is not prohibited as well as anyone who get the engine themselves.

I don't know what question you are trying to answer, but it is not mine.

[syzygy]

Is Chessbase still selling an SF-derived Houdini? Their website does not seem to show it, but maybe I am looking in the wrong place.

https://shop.chessbase.com/en/categories/chessprogramms

Indeed that is where i was looking, and I did not see Houdini there.
But I don't know if Fritz 18 = Houdini 6? Google says "no".

[syzygy]

[2:03 PM] markus: main takeaways for me:
1. one person from the project is sufficient to terminate the license. its not something that all 200 contributors need to do together.

I find that peculiar given that it destroys the business case for using GPL'd software (and thus goes against the spirit, though not the wording, of the GPL).

2. ignorance is no excuse. chessbase shouldve investigated houdini 6 themselves.

Ignorance is no excuse against copyright infringement, but the circumstances of the situation have to be taken into account when determining the consequences.

3. restrictions might not apply for future versions. if chessbase rips off sf15 then there needs to be another lawsuit (idk if the judge understood versioning...)

I guess that just means that the court would limit any order to SF13.
That makes sense, since future versions of SF could theoretically have nothing in common with SF13 (as apparently is the case for H6 and H5).
As long as SF15 contains SF13 code, an engine based on SF15 would likely still be protected by the copyright on SF13.

But what is the status of 1-4. Are these things the court has already decided on? I doubt it.

[dkappe]

[2:03 PM] markus: main takeaways for me:
1. one person from the project is sufficient to terminate the license. its not something that all 200 contributors need to do together.

I find that peculiar given that it destroys the business case for using GPL'd software (and thus goes against the spirit, though not the wording, of the GPL).

Again from a German court back in 2018: a developer was shaking down businesses with the GPLv2 independent of the other developers.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-bea ... al-threat/

[noobpwnftw]

This only proves the necessity of a court decision, but something tells me that people are trying very hard to avoid it, so that there is room for an armchair.

[dkappe]

This only proves the necessity of a court decision, but something tells me that people are trying very hard to avoid it, so that there is room for an armchair.

Is everything a conspiracy theory with you?

[noobpwnftw]

This only proves the necessity of a court decision, but something tells me that people are trying very hard to avoid it, so that there is room for an armchair.

Is everything a conspiracy theory with you?

Funny, so it appears that you do know a thing about yourself. Wasn't it you who "theorized" from a German relative that a lawsuit never took place?

[syzygy]

[2:03 PM] markus: main takeaways for me:
1. one person from the project is sufficient to terminate the license. its not something that all 200 contributors need to do together.

I find that peculiar given that it destroys the business case for using GPL'd software (and thus goes against the spirit, though not the wording, of the GPL).

Again from a German court back in 2018: a developer was shaking down businesses with the GPLv2 independent of the other developers.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-bea ... al-threat/

Some years ago I read through the court's decision, which if I remembre right impressed me with the careful analysis of the issues. (I should look it up and reread it.)

What could be relevant for this case is the precise status of a contributor in terms of copyright law. When I checked the German copyright law yesterday, I thought "Miturheber" was the only possibility, but apparently there is also "Bearbeiterurheber". I don't know what difference it makes.

At least it seems clear that individual SF contributors have standing to sue (which is good). In this case it should also not be a problem to show that the SF contributors have made copyrightable contributions that made it into the code sold by CB.

I am guessing who can terminate based on section 8 should be determined by interpreting section 8 and not by looking into the details of German copyright law.

There is also the argument that a copyright holder can terminate a license at any time independently of section 8, in particular if you don't see the GPL as a contract but as a unitaterally given permission. But if that would be accepted by the court, all open source software will have to be shunned by companies (and basically by everyone else too).