24 September 2009, 08:43

GPL wins in French court case

An appeals court in Paris has upheld the ruling from a lower court, which found that the French firm Edu4 had violated the GNU General Public License (GPL). The plaintiff was the French Organisation Association française pour la Formation Professionnelle des Adultes (AFPA), an umbrella organization for adult education.

In 2000, Edu4 equipped the AFPA's computer rooms. In the process, the IT firm used a version of the VNC remote desktop software without providing the AFPA – as required by the GPL – with the source code on request. In addition, it turned out that Edu4 had removed copyright and licensing notes from VNC.

When the matter could not be settled out of court, the AFPA took the IT firm to court and won, but Edu4 appealed the decision. Now, the higher court has confirmed the ruling PDF that Edu4 should pay €8,000 (£7,195) to the AFPA and cover both the cost of court proceedings and two expert opinions.