Welte v. D-Link is a 2006 judgment of the Landgericht Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt District Court) in a case brought by Harald Welte, a Linux kernel developer and founder of the gpl-violations.org project, against D-Link Germany GmbH. According to the plaintiff’s announcement, the court on 2006-09-06 confirmed his rights in the source code at issue, D-Link’s violation of the GNU General Public License (GPL), “the validity of the GPL under German law”, and D-Link’s obligation to reimburse his legal expenses, test purchase and cost of re-engineering.[1] The text of the judgment could not be obtained from an official source for this article, so the account below relies on that announcement.
Background
D-Link Germany, a subsidiary of D-Link Corporation of Taiwan, distributed the DSM-G600, a network attached storage (NAS) device running a Linux-based operating system. The plaintiff’s position was that the distribution did not comply with the GPL, which covers the Linux kernel and other programs in the product.[1]
The dispute
After a warning notice, D-Link signed a declaration to cease and desist and agreed not to distribute the product further, but refused to reimburse the costs of the test purchase, re-engineering and legal advice. As quoted in translation in the announcement, D-Link’s lawyers wrote on 2006-02-24 that they did not “consider the GPL as legally binding”. The plaintiff filed suit in Frankfurt in March 2006 seeking a judgment supporting his copyright claims based on the GPL and reimbursement of the out-of-court enforcement costs.[1]
Decision or outcome
The announcement reports that the court found for the plaintiff on the points above and considered the claimed legal expenses too high by about EUR 300. It states that the plaintiff had not sought damages, only cessation and expenses, and that D-Link could appeal.[1] No appeal outcome is recorded in the source reviewed.
Significance for software licensing and SAM practice
The case is an early court decision on the GPL in a full proceeding, after the Munich district court decision that D-Link’s lawyers referred to, and it concerned the kind of embedded Linux distribution common in network and storage devices.[1] The plaintiff’s project reported more than 100 GPL violations uncovered and numerous out-of-court settlements in the preceding 30 months, which indicates how many such disputes end without a judgment.[1] The licence conditions are described in GNU GPL, LGPL and AGPL obligations.
Lessons learned
- The “GPL is not binding” defence failed. D-Link argued that the GPL was not legally binding, and the court, as reported, confirmed its validity under German law.[1]
- Every shipped device counts. The dispute concerned a single NAS product whose Linux-based firmware was distributed without complying with the GPL.[1]
- Settling the injunction may not settle the costs. D-Link signed a cease-and-desist declaration but was still ordered, as reported, to reimburse the test purchase, re-engineering and legal costs.[1]