> GPL was found to be inapplicable in French copyright court, however it should be applicable under contract law.
Do you understand exactly why the GPL was inapplicable? I was unable to figure it out from the article. My guess is that the defendant may not have actually been copying or distributing the GPL-licensed program. The defendant ran a portal for a client which incorporated the program, but it's not clear that their derived software was being distributed. So, if they did not copy or distribute the program, then their actions would not fall under copyright (or author's rights) infringement. If the copyright action failed, then the plaintiff might try a contract claim, but that doesn't mean that the GPL will necessarily be treated as a contract.
Also, could you cite some authority for the assertion that there is no distinction between licenses and contracts in French law? The concepts are quite different.
Why? See the edit in my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=user5994461 that's the single line explanation of why (and yes it's really dumb to waste 9 years on that and lose the case).
Do you understand exactly why the GPL was inapplicable? I was unable to figure it out from the article. My guess is that the defendant may not have actually been copying or distributing the GPL-licensed program. The defendant ran a portal for a client which incorporated the program, but it's not clear that their derived software was being distributed. So, if they did not copy or distribute the program, then their actions would not fall under copyright (or author's rights) infringement. If the copyright action failed, then the plaintiff might try a contract claim, but that doesn't mean that the GPL will necessarily be treated as a contract.
Also, could you cite some authority for the assertion that there is no distinction between licenses and contracts in French law? The concepts are quite different.