Our lawsuit against ChessBase
stockfishchess.org
Our lawsuit against ChessBase
1–10 of 261 posts
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#2If this goes to trial, I think this might be the cleanest and most straightforward test of the GPL in court we've had up to this point?
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#3While I think it’s a shame that nobody has been able to sue ChessBase for their software being utter garbage, I will cheer on this equally worthy endeavour.
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#4In an online course recently, one module involved an API with an attribution requirement that neither the instructor nor any student was aware of - they specifically described it as free use, no attribution required, because they were unaware. Despite there having been more than 20k previous students, I was the first person to mention mention this and link to the clause, and the instructor was surprised.
Almost everybody skips reading the terms and licenses of things
In the chess case, the team probably assumed that open source meant “do whatever you want,” and nobody dug any deeper than that, and now they’re getting sued
Edit: the comments below say that they knew about the license issue for years
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#5> Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently.
What do they mean by this?
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#6If this goes to trial, I think this might be the cleanest and most straightforward test of the GPL in court we've had up to this point?
I agree. Likely a quick checkmate in court.
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#7> Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. What do they mean by this?
From GNU GPL v3:
8. Termination.
You may not propagate or modify a covered work except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to propagate or modify it is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License (including any patent licenses granted under the third paragraph of section 11).
However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to 60 days after the cessation.
Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after your receipt of the notice.
Termination of your rights under this section does not terminate the licenses of parties who have received copies or rights from you under this License. If your rights have been terminated and not permanently reinstated, you do not qualify to receive new licenses for the same material under section 10.
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#8> Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. What do they mean by this?
[deleted]
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#9> Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. What do they mean by this?
GPL allows you to use and distribute open-source code as long as you follow certain conditions like open sourcing derivatives under the GPL.
Since Chessbase has not done that, Stockfish devs are no longer allowing Chessbase to use their code.
Re: Our lawsuit against ChessBase
#10> Due to Chessbase’s repeated license violations, leading developers of Stockfish have terminated their GPL license with ChessBase permanently. What do they mean by this?
Absent a license, ChessBase has no right to distribute any of the Stockfish code.
This simply reverts the code to copyrighted content, much like a book.