Court Decision Means Open Source Licenses Are legally Enforceable

Open Source may to be synonymous with "free as in free beer" but it doesn't mean that one can do what ever they want with the code and go unpunished.

A ruling in an American court set the record straight and could have a long lasting impact on how software developers should view code release under the Open Source license.

The court decision means that developers can now sue culprits for copyright infringement rather than a breach of contract which means that the penalties could be much higher.

The irony of course is that copyright laws could be used to protect the rights of Copyleft movement.

The court case was brought forth against, Matthew Katzer who was accused of developing a for-profit software without the appropriate attribution.

The court document underlined the fact that "Copyright holders who engage in open source licensing have the right to control the modification and distribution of copyrighted materials".