Linux.com: The Mockery of Mattel Mar 29, 2000, 17 :26 UTC (2 Talkback[s]) (4954 reads) (Other stories by Matt Michie)
"Eddy Jansson from Sweden and Matt Skala of Canada were the
primary authors of a utility called cphack and a walk-through The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) jumped in with an offer to
defend the two crypto-analysts, and things began to move forward.
Mattel then fought to extend their injunction against the mirror sites as
well. Each time one mirror was taken off-line, another sprung to life.
Free speech and free software advocates began to gear up for the
coming battle."
"Then unexpectedly, news broke that the two defendants had decided
to settle with Mattel. They had granted Mattel copyright to their Cyper
Patrol decryption program and documentation. The community was
appalled, but somewhat understanding. After all, how many of us have
the time, money, and resources to fight a legal battle against a huge
corporation?"
"Now, a further twist has surfaced to complicate matters. Apparently,
the source was released under the GNU General Public License
(GPL). Once a program is distributed with the GPL, the copyright to
that particular version can not be revoked. What does this do to the
legality of the cphack source code? Is the GPL finally going to be
tested in court? What are the ramifications of all this?"
