The legal precedent: « IF you’re sued and IF you’re found guilty, then you MAY have to pay LESS than the inflation adjusted cost of paying a commercial license, 20 years in the future »
Not really. This is just the beginning. Governments are leaning into open source and will likely see protections like this, and their enforcement as helping secure the open supply chain. Which is something they’re already trying to do.
I’m not sure about the rest of you out there with companies, but for me the trend seems clear and I’m gonna be much more cautious going forward with the kind of licenses I use both as a vendor and buyer.
Landmark decisions ([0], [1]) set precedent. The conseil constitutionnel has ruled that its precedent is binding [2]. In fact the majority of current constitutionnal law in France was willed into "constitutionnal" status by a landmark decision of the conseil [3]. I mean precdent can move _laws_ to the _constitution_ (see [4]). That seems pretty binding and persuasive.
[3] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9cision_Libert%C3%A9_d%2...: essentially, the council ruled that the preamble of the constitution also had constitutional value (which was not the case previously and still is not for laws) - since it also mentions other texts (the preamble of the 1046 Constitution, the 1789 Bill of rights, etc. those texts also have the same legal power as the constitution.
It doesn't even matter if it will be considered for other cases - simply having an example showing that yes the GPL can be enforced will work as a deterrent before things even go to court.
True, in German it is called "Rechtssicherheit", the presence of a clear, agreed understanding of a law and its application. The idea being, some not 110% defined legal questions get litigated once, and then most follow the outcome.
