The Inkscape Board approves a purchase by Conservancy lawyers of Digital Fashion Pro for purposes of establishing evidence of GPL violation, in the amount of up to $250.
A majority vote of the current board members is required for the following matter.
| Board Member | Vote |
|---|---|
| Bryce Harrington | a. |
| Tavmjong Bah | a. |
| Josh Andler | a. |
| Jon Cruz | a. |
| Ted Gould | a. |
Hi guys,
It’s been brought to our attention that there is a company selling software called Digital Fashion Pro, which in actuality is just Inkscape with some templates thrown in, and a price tag in the hundreds or thousands of dollars. It appears they neither mention that the software is open source under the GPL, nor make offers of source code for download, which is a GPL violation.
In order to establish legal proof of the violation, Conservancy needs to verify the lack of source offer, and to do that they need to examine a purchased copy of the software. Their policy is to ask the infringed project (i.e. us) to foot the bill for that copy. If it is found that the company is in fact in violation, they will be asked (or legally required) to repay this amount. They may also be required to pay legal fees, and to come into compliance with the GPL.
The price of the software has varied during the time of observation. Currently it is “on sale” for $200, but I’ve seen it offered at $500 and even $1500.
Please see below for the Conservancy’s estimation of the likely best/typical/worst case resolution of this.
Bryce
