Bonum Certa Men Certa

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) Belatedly Comments on Case That Tests Copyleft in the United States

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Mar 04, 2025

SOME days ago The Register published a piece on Neo4j v. Suhy and after some prodding* the FSF issued a statement:

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA (March 3, 2025) -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced today it has submitted an amicus brief in the case entitled Neo4j, Inc., et al. v. Suhy, et al., Case No. 24-5538 in the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The amicus brief addresses various misstatements and baseless assertions regarding the FSF and the GNU Affero General Public License Version 3 (AGPLv3) -- the license at issue in the case -- found in a pleading filed by Neo4j.

It's good to see the FSF getting involved, even if somewhat belatedly.

____

* It started last month:


There is a case going on which can impact not just the copyleft licenses
but even the non-reciprocally licenses:

"I don't think the community realizes that if the Ninth Circuit upholds the lower court’s ruling, it won’t just kill GPLv3," PureThink's John Mark Suhy told The Register.
"It will create a dangerous legal precedent that could be used to undermine all open-source licenses, allowing licensors to impose unexpected restrictions and fundamentally eroding the trust that makes open source possible."
from:
"Adverse appeals court ruling could kill GPL software license"
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/27/adverse_appeals_court_ruling_could/
Kudos to Thomas at The Register for spotting and covering such an important case.
The FSF, EFF, OSI, SFLC, LibrePlanet, and others have been disappointingly quiet on the case. It's getting a bit late. What is the best way to nudge the aforementioned institutions into checking the case out and, if possible, filing an amicus brief?

Due to moderation-related delays it took some days for responses to be sent and appear:



The FSF has now filed an Amicus brief on the case that supposedly contains the history of their dealings with Neo4j, according to a release they sent out from the "Info@fsf.org" mailing list.
ART ------------------ Arthur Torrey - <arthur_torrey@comcast.net> -------------------

We couldn't announce this at the time, but are happy to announce it
now:

<https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-submits-amicus-brief-in-neo4j-v-suhy>
-g
-- Greg Farough // Campaigns Manager Free Software Foundation


Link was not quite there: [1]https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/27/adverse_appeals_court_ ruling_could/ Thanks for sending this through. Looking forward to any insights others might provide..


I tried to follow the link and just got a page not found error
Paul


Thanks, I didn't know anything about this either, I think you are right the WHOLE community is quiet why??
Paul

libreplanet-discuss (date)

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Passkeys Are Vendor Lock-in and Imperialism, Not Security, So Escape Them Before They Latch Onto Your Workflows
This is their 'grand vision' of computing. You merely 'rent' what you assumed you truly bought to own.
Let's Put Slop In the Casket Once and for All (Call Out the Sites and People Who Produce and Spread Slop)
Together, through a movement of integrity and solidarity, we can marginalise the spread of slop in all its forms, including code
Windows Down in the Largest Countries, Microsoft Cannot Dodge This Reality Forever
Talking about "clown" and "hey hi" (AI) - sometimes "Quantum" - is like telling bedtime stories to infantile investors who don't understand those buzzwords
Microsoft Says Demand/Budget for "AI" is Decreasing, Bing is Also Moving Down and Down This Year ("Bing Chat" Was an Utter Failure, People Want Sites, Not Slop)
Skype is about to shut down, XBox will likely die soon
Data Shows Largest EU Economies Shifting to GNU/linux
all-time highs
Microsoft President Panics Over Europe's Abandonment of Microsoft/GAFAM/Trump's USA, These Figures Show Us Why
Microsoft is bluffing
Microsoft Windows Falls Below Quarter in "Market Share" (While Microsoft Fakes Rising Dominance... in Buzzwords and Fake Accounting)
Cooking the books while Windows gets 'cooked'
Techrights Statement: The Solution is Not More Censorship or Moving to Another Mastodon Instance, the Core Problem is Social Control Media Including Mastodon
Censorship typically leads to additional (new) issues
 
Why Law Firms and Courts in Particular Should Dump Microsoft
Giving a notoriously corrupt and chronically law-breaking company control over one's systems and data is a recipe for disaster
Gemini Links 03/05/2025: Showerhead Mod and Micro Dosing on LSD
Links for the day
Links 03/05/2025: Bribery in Dutch Microsoft DC Probe, Zuckerberg Conflates Slop With 'Friends'
Links for the day
Today is World Press Freedom Day, 3rd of May
2025 World Press Freedom Day
Gemini Protocol's Momentum Ahead of Its 6th Anniversary (Next Month)
The more capsules go online, the more people participate in writing, not just reading
Corporate Media, a Cheerleader of Wall Street Facade, Spent Days Saying "META" and "MSFT" Lifted "the Market", But Their Debt Soared
Facebook's debt has never been higher
Microsoft Windows Falls to a Meager 9% "Market Share" in South Africa While GNU/Linux Rises Above 5% in Desktops/Laptops
South Africa is where the founder of Ubuntu (or Canonical) comes from
Links 03/05/2025: Australian Election and manpage for Gemini Considered
Links for the day
Links 03/05/2025: UK Arrests for Bribery Connected to Microsoft Datacentres
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 02, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 02, 2025
Not Just an OSU Open Source Lab Issue
Prominent and very prolific news sites about Linux ask for help
GNU/Linux Has Risen to All-Time High in South America, Windows Has Fallen a Lot Due to Android
What will the rest of the year bring?
Richard Stallman (RMS) Says US "Magats" Have Destroyed Press Freedom in the US
Now they're exporting their attacks on the media to the UK
In Africa, GNU/Linux Rose From 3% to 4% in Just Two Months
So says statCounter anyway... What will it be like by the end of this year?
Gemini Links 02/05/2025: Bandcamp and Spying "Smart Glasses"
Links for the day
Asia is Running Away From USA-ware (Trump or 'Tariff Regime'), Including Microsoft Windows
The nationalism harms Microsoft
Links 02/05/2025: Expedia Group Undergoes Layoffs, Twitter Exodus in Europe
Links for the day
Good News, Bad News: Groklaw is Back Online, SoylentNews Apparently Loses Editor
Jan ought to change the resignation into a mere pause
Manchester Computing Centre (MCC) Made the First GNU/Linux Distro, But You Probably Never Heard of It
People like Owen are barely remembered, not because they didn't do valuable work but because they didn't suck up to "The Establishment"
Online Mobs and Crabs: Doing to Fabrice Bellard What They Did to Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds
They just don't want skilled people to be productive
E-mail is Not HTML, Web Pages Aren't a Form of E-mail
as an associate remains us, always use "plain text, it was good enough for Shakespeare"
Slopwatch: Stigma-Baiting by the Serial Sloppers and Latest Garbage From the Slopfarm LinuxSecurity.com (Also Slopping Away at "OpenBSD" With SEO SPAM Made by LLMs)
Microsoft et al are trying to profit from blurring away information
Links 02/05/2025: Mineral Selloff and Chinese Sanctions
Links for the day
Gemini Links 02/05/2025: Hens and Tmux
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 01, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 01, 2025
Gopher/Gemini Links 01/05/2025: Slop/LLM Bot Troubles and Driving Angry
Links for the day
Links 01/05/2025: Apple Lies to Courts, European Patents Thrown Out by British Courts Again
Links for the day
Microsoft's CEO is Hyping Up 'AI' (Plagiarism) to Distract From Falling Interest in It and Missed Expectations (Investors Run Out of Patience as Reality Does Not Meet or Match Early False Promises)
Microsoft clearly needs 1) a distraction and 2) hype about "AI"
No, Microsoft, Plagiarism is Not "AI"
"Satya Nadella says as much as 30% of Microsoft code is written by AI"
Microsoft Has Become Almost Extinct in Web Servers, Netcraft Now Ranks It in Only One Category (Microsoft Down Sharply), Deranked/Outranked in All the Rest
Microsoft used to be in all categories, now it's in just one
Gemini Links 01/05/2025: Small Web and Going Offline
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Hundred of Layoffs Again, Same Week as the Company's Fake Results
those people were in effect Microsoft employees, just classified as contractors
Sirius Open Source in Court
I personally was a witness and an alibi
What GNU/Linux Means to Us
Linux without freedom is like becoming a vegetarian "except on special occasions"
Links 01/05/2025: Slop Blowback, Social Control Media as Vehicle of "Sextortion"
Links for the day
Disinformation and Marketing Spam From and For OIN (GAFAM's and IBM's Weapon Against Free Software Activists and Reformists Against Software Patents)
All in all, this anniversary is just a PR stunt with revisionism
Some of the Evidence We'll Be Relying Upon in the Lawsuits Against Matthew J. Garrett
Finally facing the consequences for his actions
Symptom or Hallmark of Ponzi Schemes: Microsoft Says It Gains Over 100 Million Dollars in "Goodwill" and Its Speculative "Value" Nearly Doubled to $119,329,000,000 in the Past Year Alone
Total liabilities are now over $240,000,000,000
Gemini Links 01/05/2025: Trying OpenBSD and Usenet Reborn Released
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 30, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 30, 2025