FSFE Seeks to Protect Licenses from Bankruptcy
Free Software licenses could face legal challenges in some European jurisdictions.
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is working to protect Free Software licenses from bankruptcy. In a statement released this week, the FSFE said, “It is not entirely clear what can happen to the Free Software licenses that were granted by rights holders either before or after they went bankrupt. This lack of clear rules could greatly endanger functioning of the Free Software, which depends on the contributions from numerous rights holders.”
According to the statement, when the companies or authors that license Free Software enter bankruptcy, there is a risk that granted Free Software licenses will face legal challenges in some jurisdictions, and the FSFE is currently working to prevent this situation in Germany.
The FSFE website states that, some time ago, the German Ministry of Justice published an initiative to improve the regulation of licenses during the insolvency proceedings. So, the Institute for Legal Questions on Free and Open Source Software (ifrOSS), supported by FSFE, prepared a suggestion of the Free Software clause that “ensures that Free Software licensing model would not be negatively affected by a bankruptcy of a licensing rights holder.” Under the clause, any offer to grant Free Software license made before the licensor’s bankruptcy can be accepted by anyone even after bankruptcy proceedings have started.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.