“I thought I would offer one person’s take on what just
transpired in Courtroom 13 at the US District Court in Boston,
where Judge Patti Saris heard arguments in the complex dispute
between MySQL and NuSphere/Progress, which centered in no small
part on the use of open source software said to be governed by the
GPL.As previous posts to politechbot reported earlier, both sides
had sued the other last summer. At this stage, Judge Saris was
considering whether to grant a preliminary injunction on two
issues: 1) NuSphere’s use of the MySQL-related trademarks and 2)
NuSphere’s use of certain code developed by MySQL and governed by
the GPL as part of its Gemini product. Though she did not issue any
orders on the spot, Judge Saris made it plain that she intended to
issue a preliminary injunction against NuSphere’s use of the marks
in question (likely with 90 days to stop usage of the marks) and
that she was not going to issue a preliminary injunction in the
more complicated matter of the use of the MySQL code and terms the
GPL.1. The trademark issue was a fairly straight-forward contract
construction discussion, with no cutting edge issues involved (from
my perspective). She started with the presumption that irreparable
harm existed, and never moved far off that point.”