Ruling mentions GPL, 1800 MIT courses (was: Re: (NY Times...:) "...Victory for...[Free SW]")

[Mike Schwartz]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 2:12 PM, Mike Schwartz <schwartz at acm.org> wrote:
>
> (("Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software
>   New York Times (08/14/08) P. C7; Markoff, John"))
>        http://technews.acm.org/#374965
> Here are some excerpts:
> << "In a major victory for the open source software movement, the
> federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., has ruled [...]" >>
> (basically, has ruled that licenses like the Gnu GPL -- [in this case,
> it apparently was the "Artistic License"] -- are OK).
> << "The lower court [had] ruled that the terms of the open source
> contract [I think they mean "license"] were overly broad." >>
> The "Click Here to View Full Article" link points to
>  "http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/technology/14commons.html"
> (at which point you can click on "Print") (-- if you are like me)
> That [NY Times] article has some embedded hyper-links, such as
> this one from (the word "_ruling_" in) the 2nd sentence:
>    http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf
> [...snip...]
> --
> Mike Schwartz

I hadn't read (all of) the ruling
     http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf
when that initial post was sent.
The ruling specifically talks about the Gnu GPL (and, in footnote 2
at the bottom of page 7, it mentions that it is used for Linux).
It also mentions several projects that use [quote] "public" licenses,
such as Perl, Firefox, Apache and Wikipedia, and
"the Gnu/Linux operating system"
(but elsewhere, in footnote 2, the "Gnu/" part of that name is left out).
Also (pay attention, teachers!) on pages 6/7, the ruling says
     "For example, [MIT] uses a Creative Commons public license for an
OpenCourseWare project that licenses all 1800 MIT courses."
--
Mike Schwartz
Glendale AZ
schwartz at acm.org