The case centers on who has the authority to interpret the terms of an open-source license:
1.The software developers who adopt licenses like GPLv3, MIT, or Apache 2.0 for their projects
OR
2. The original authors of those licenses (FSF, Apache Foundation, etc)
If the appeal fails to overturn the flawed lower court ruling, it will set a precedent allowing legal cases to focus on how software developers themselves interpret the terms of licenses like GPLv3, MIT,Apache 2.0, etc.
This is precisely what happened with Neo4j.
This issue is significant enough that two of the leading open-source foundations submitted amicus briefs in the case.
I think Neo4j knows it is wrong after this latest Amicus and they have the power to stop this in its tracks by simply settling the case before the ninth circuit makes a ruling which will be precedent.
It looks like the Free Software Foundation is not standing on the sidelines any longer and have called out Neo4j in the newly filed Amicus Brief filed February 28th, 2025.
Many in the community are only just starting to realize the potential impact of this case on FOSS licensing
the impact is that if the developer gets to set the rules on how to interpret the license text then there will be a lot of confusion and doubt, because two projects can use the same license and interpret it differently. but while that is potentially a problem it should only affect licenses with ambiguous clauses of which there should not be many in the original GNU licenses, so the primary projects that will be affected are those that modify the GNU licenses and add additional terms.
that modified GNU licenses are problematic should not be surprising. i'd stay away from any project that tries to do that.
the impact is similar to companies calling their products open source even though they don't use an open source license. now we get a company calling their license GNU even though it actually isn't.
beyond that i don't think the outcome of the ruling will matter much.
So Neo4j added additional restrictions to their "GPL" licence, those were removed by a project that redistributed it.
FSF called out Neo4j and Neo4j just relicensed their entire project rather than make it properly GPL, but won't stop hassling the redistribution of the old version. Presumably to stop a GPL version of their older code being out there?
I think there is more to the story. Here is an interesting tidbit: The person Neo4j is fighting (Suhy) is the founder of ONgDB and DozerDB - the 2 biggest open source forks of Neo4j. (Possibly the only forks)
The case centers on who has the authority to interpret the terms of an open-source license:
1.The software developers who adopt licenses like GPLv3, MIT, or Apache 2.0 for their projects
OR
2. The original authors of those licenses (FSF, Apache Foundation, etc)
If the appeal fails to overturn the flawed lower court ruling, it will set a precedent allowing legal cases to focus on how software developers themselves interpret the terms of licenses like GPLv3, MIT,Apache 2.0, etc.
This is precisely what happened with Neo4j.
This issue is significant enough that two of the leading open-source foundations submitted amicus briefs in the case.
I think Neo4j knows it is wrong after this latest Amicus and they have the power to stop this in its tracks by simply settling the case before the ninth circuit makes a ruling which will be precedent.
Pretty crazy situation!
It looks like the Free Software Foundation is not standing on the sidelines any longer and have called out Neo4j in the newly filed Amicus Brief filed February 28th, 2025.
Many in the community are only just starting to realize the potential impact of this case on FOSS licensing
the impact is that if the developer gets to set the rules on how to interpret the license text then there will be a lot of confusion and doubt, because two projects can use the same license and interpret it differently. but while that is potentially a problem it should only affect licenses with ambiguous clauses of which there should not be many in the original GNU licenses, so the primary projects that will be affected are those that modify the GNU licenses and add additional terms.
that modified GNU licenses are problematic should not be surprising. i'd stay away from any project that tries to do that.
the impact is similar to companies calling their products open source even though they don't use an open source license. now we get a company calling their license GNU even though it actually isn't.
beyond that i don't think the outcome of the ruling will matter much.
I'm sorry but I've not been following this.
So Neo4j added additional restrictions to their "GPL" licence, those were removed by a project that redistributed it.
FSF called out Neo4j and Neo4j just relicensed their entire project rather than make it properly GPL, but won't stop hassling the redistribution of the old version. Presumably to stop a GPL version of their older code being out there?
I think there is more to the story. Here is an interesting tidbit: The person Neo4j is fighting (Suhy) is the founder of ONgDB and DozerDB - the 2 biggest open source forks of Neo4j. (Possibly the only forks)
So GPL'ed and then unhappy that there are forks?
Madness.
Sounds about right. I don’t think their investors were too happy with their ‘open source’ activities.
Neo4j got to where they are on the backs of the open source community, which makes this situation that much more maddening.