"The open source More about open source movement may well have
gotten a great boost from a court decision that could make it
easier to enforce FOSS licenses.
"Last December, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit issued a decision in the matter of Jacobsen v. Katzer,
ruling that breach of an open source license can support a claim
for copyright infringement with associated remedies. The court's
ruling may also require recognizing that the open source copyright
owner has standing to sue downstream licensees for copyright
infringement.
"However, the unintended side effect of that ruling may be that
many software developers could shy away from potential legal
conflicts by avoiding open source programming altogether -- and
that could lead to more attention on licensing issues that have
always existed but never got much attention."
