JMRI: Defending FOSS against legal attacks

This news item describes some recent activity in JMRI's legal struggle to defend the free & open-source nature of it's software, and provides pointers to more information. This is an important case, because we're defending against an attack on some of the basic ways (copyrights and published code) that open-source software communities protect their work from misuse.

JMRI (Java Model Railroad Interface) is a successful project to create software for model railroads. It is hosted on SourceForge.net and has large user and developer communities.
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/jmri/>

For the last two years JMRI has been under attack by Matt Katzer and his attorney Kevin Russell. They have been using various coercive tactics, some of which we believe are illegal, in an attempt to put a stop to JMRI's work or to extract money from JMRI. They've applied for patents that cover JMRI after JMRI published the relevant code and then demanded more than $200,000 in royalties; they've cyber-squatted on a JMRI trademark; they've contacted one of the developer's employer in an attempt to intimidate him; and most recently we've learned that they're claiming JMRI files as their own and distributing them as part of their product.

More information is available here:
<http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/index.html> 

For the entire history, please see the updates page, which is also where we post new info as it happens: 
<http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/updates.html> 

Last summer, we learned that Matt Katzer and KAM Industries have been shipping JMRI decoder definitions as part of their "Decoder Commander" product, without giving JMRI any credit for it. For information on some of the evidence for that, please see: 
<http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/copycomparison.html> 

Matt is claiming that copyright law doesn't apply to his misuse of the JMRI decoder definitions, and that JMRI isn't protected against his infringement by our license: 
<http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/updates.html#2006-09-27> 

We're fighting that, of course, along with the bogus patents, cybersquatting, etc.
<http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/updates.html#2006-11-03>

During November there will be some additional legal arguments filed with the Court, and we expect decisions on some of these issues from hearings in December.

To all the people who've helped with time, money or moral support, thank you. It's likely to be a long, difficult struggle, but we simply can't give up. This is just too important. 

Bob Jacobsen
jacobsen@users.sourceforge.net