What is very interesting in this is that the case was won despite the GPL license being available in English only in distributions that I'm aware of.

In France this could have been a serious hurdle to overcome, but instead it seems as though that never even entered the picture.

The interesting thing about this case is that the infringer was sued by a company that used their software, not by the copyright holder.

I'm not sure I'm happy about that, given the way a few rabid free software fanatics have acted in the past. In particular, I remember the QuakeWorld GPL fiasco, where zealots in the community took it upon themselves to harass the leader of an open source project, rather than giving a chance for a much more level-headed John Carmack to sort things out.

See: http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/finger.pl?id=1&time=200...

It took 7 years!?!? for this case to finish?

New business model:

  Violate GPL
  Earn money for 6 years
  Pay massive salaries
  Go bankrupt on the 7th

Welcome to the Law System.

But there are good reasons for the delay. Presumption of innocence, injunctions for relief etc all take time to consider.

Isn't this case law though? If so this case will be cited in future cases: it paves the way for future rulings on this.

Future rulings are likely to come earlier making the new business model less viable.

> the GPL is just a conditional disclaimer of copyright -- it doesn't even pretend to be a contract.

Whatever else the GPL does, it absolutely does not disclaim copyright. It maintains it, but gives you a license, if you follow a certain set of conditions.

It's a license which confers certain rights to the recipient of the software. In this case it appears the the recipient successfully sued to enforce those rights.

Yeah, then why is it that you're so completely wrong when it comes to this case?