Stockfish: Chess GPLv3 Violation Lawsuit Settles

[Daniel Pono Takamori]

            Stockfish: Chess GPLv3 Violation Lawsuit Settles
    SFC Named as Trusted Party To Verify Future Corresponding Source

URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/nov/28/sfc-named-trusted-party-in-gpl-case/

Links to social media:
  https://social.sfconservancy.org/notice/AQ4ftINvUTSImYwgts
  https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/1597338038409252864

Stockfish, a Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) chess engine, has
announced the settlement of their lawsuit [0] against ChessBase GmbH
regarding violations of Stockfish's license, the General Public License,
version 3 (GPLv3). Software Freedom Conservancy is excited to announce
our role in this historic violation settlement. Specifically, SFC has
been named in the settlement agreement [1] as the trusted third-party to
analyze and approve any complete “Corresponding Source” releases by
ChessBase in the future.

SFC is honored that the parties chose us to carry out this critical
duty. As a litigant ourselves in unrelated copyleft enforcement
litigation, we know well that ongoing compliance, and assuring that the
rights of the community of users remains respected for the years after
the litigation completes, is the most important work of software
freedom. We also appreciate the trust that the FOSS community places in
SFC as arbiters on behalf of consumers and users, of what various
copyleft licenses (such as the GPLv2 and GPLv3) require with regard to
complete, corresponding source (CCS).

Too often, those who enforce the GPL focus so much on the copyright
infringement they have suffered and forget the policy goal of all
copyleft licenses: to guarantee that users and consumers get the
methods, means, and technical details on how to make real use of the
software rights and freedoms that the licenses promise. We congratulate
both parties in this litigation for coming to an amicable agreement that
makes a plan to put those rights of users first and foremost in an
ongoing way.

[0] https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2022/chessbase-stockfish-agreement/
[1] https://stockfishchess.org/files/settlement_english.pdf