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''Wallace v. International Business Machines Corp. et al.'', 467 F.3d 1104 (7th Cir. 2006), was a significant case in the development of free software. The case decided, at the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, that in United States law the GNU General Public License (GPL) did not contravene federal antitrust laws. Daniel Wallace, a United States citizen, sued the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for price fixing. In a later lawsuit, he unsuccessfully sued IBM, Novell, and Red Hat. Wallace claimed that free Linux prevented him from making a profit from selling his own operating system. ==FSF lawsuit== In 2005, Daniel Wallace filed suit against the FSF in Indiana, stating that the GPL, by requiring copies of computer software licensed under it to be made available freely (without legal restriction), and possibly even at no cost, is tantamount to price fixing. In November 2005 the case was dismissed without prejudice, and Wallace filed multiple amended complaints in an effort to satisfy the requirements of an antitrust allegation. His fourth and final amended complaint was dismissed on March 20, 2006, by Judge John Daniel Tinder, and Wallace was ordered to pay the FSF's costs. In its decision to grant the motion to dismiss, the Court ruled that Wallace had failed to allege any antitrust injury on which his claim could be based, since Wallace was obligated to claim not only that he had been injured but also that the ''market'' had. The Court instead found that :()he GPL encourages, rather than discourages, free competition and the distribution of computer operating systems, the benefits of which directly pass to consumers. These benefits include lower prices, better access and more innovation. The Court also noted that prior cases have established that the Sherman Act was enacted to assure customers the benefits of price competition, and have emphasized the act's primary purpose of protecting the economic freedom of participants in the relevant market. This decision thus supports the right of authors and content creators to offer their creations free of charge. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Wallace v. International Business Machines Corp.」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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