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