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El Reg reports:
Linux kernel developer Christoph Hellwig has sued VMware in Hamburg, Germany, over alleged violations of the GNU General Public License.
Hellwig's suit, which is backed by New York advocacy group the Software Freedom Conservancy, alleges that VMware's proprietary ESXi hypervisor products use portions of the code that Hellwig wrote for the Linux kernel, in violation of the terms of version 2 of the GPL.
"In addition to other ways VMware has not complied with the requirements of the GPL," the Conservancy wrote in a blog post on Wednesday, "Conservancy and Hellwig specifically assert that VMware has combined copyrighted Linux code, licensed under GPLv2, with their own proprietary code called 'vmkernel' and distributed the entire combined work without providing nor offering complete, corresponding source code for that combined work under terms of the GPLv2."
This isn't the first time Hellwig has made such claims. He first accused VMware of violating the GPL in 2006 via the Linux Kernel Mailing List, even threatening to sue. It now seems that the proverbial other shoe has finally dropped.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @03:10PM
The headline should read "VMWare Sued for Infringing Linux Source Code".
That's one thing I've learned from reading Slashdot and SN comments over the years. Stop using words to make an action seem more worse than it really is!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 06 2015, @06:45PM
What does "infringe cource code" mean?
Sued for Linux Source Code Copyright Infringement, perhaps. The Colloquialism is much easier. "Ripping Off" implies things like plagiarism as well, so it is much more accurate than "theft" which is the parralel you are alluding to, I think.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 06 2015, @08:08PM
Fine. So people who obtain music through illegal torrents are ripping off the record companies, right?