​Linux beats legal threat from one of its own developers

In a German court earlier this week, former Linux developer Patrick McHardy gave up on his Gnu General Public License version 2 (GPLv2) violation case against Geniatech Europe GmbH. Now, you may ask, "How can a Linux programmer dropping a case against a company that violates the GPL count as a win?" It's complicated. First, anyone who knows the least thing about Linux's legal infrastructure knows its licensed under the GPLv2. Many don't know that anyone who has copyrighted code in the Linux kernel can take action against companies that violate the GPLv2. Usually, that's a non-issue.

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