Daniel Wallace v. International Business Machines Corp.
United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
467 F.3d 1104 (2006)

- Written by Sean Carroll, JD
Facts
The GNU General Public License (GPL) was a compilation of free software licenses available to the public. Authors who published their software under the GPL permitted copying and the creation of derivative works free of charge and without any chance of retribution under copyright law. Derivative works made under the license were required to abide the terms of the original license, thus becoming part of the GPL. The Linux operating system was part of the GPL. International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) (defendant) offered the Linux operating system with its servers for free under the GPL. Daniel Wallace (plaintiff) wished to compete with Linux and filed suit, claiming that because Linux was free and would continue to be free, IBM violated antitrust laws. The district court dismissed the complaint. Wallace appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Easterbrook, J.)
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