I have seen using of GPL code in proprietary software which is sold to customers. It seems so wrong that they are not releasing under GPL and not contributing to the Community
Is there any authority to check the misuse of GPL?
How misuse of GPL can be reported?
Here's a page on Violations of the GNU Licenses from the Free Software Foundation which has information on this subject.
Just report it to the original author(s) of the code and let them take care of it.
Misuse of GPL'd code should be reported to the copyright holder - usually, the creator of the GPL'd code. The creator can then prosecute the misuser. Have a look at this.
Only the copyright holder can say it is damaged by the misuser. So if you assign copyrights to the FSF, the FSF can sue on behalf of you. And that also the reason that Harald Welte only goes after customers who use the netfilter part of the Linux kernel. It all boils down to what the copyright owners do.
This also means that it depends on the copyrights holders interpretation of the GPL on when they sue. That's the problem with the law: it leaves a lot for interpretation. Then again, the only thing which leaves no room for interpretation are programming languages, and that's not the way laws are written hapily :)
Note that there is nothing in itself wrong or illegal in selling a product that uses GPL'd code. The vendor must however provide the code for the application, on request, to his licensees (the people who bought from him). The vendor is under no obligation to supply his code to "the Community", though the licensee could do so, if they wished.
The SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) has been known to provide the guns for Open Source copyright violation lawsuits. See my answer to an earlier question "Are software appliances a way to hide the fact that you are using open source?" for links.
Of course Rutger Nijlunsing has the basic fact: it is the copy right holder who brings the civil suit (so no "prosecution" as such which is a feature of criminal law).
You do not need to be the Copyright holder do be disadvantaged by violoations. At least this seems to be the case in France.
See this FSF article, with reference to ruling from the French Court of Appals
Hmm.. I think that GPL overall is a tricky legal issue as I would imagine a good lawyer could argue his / her way out of violation of it for most companies... what I mean is:
Say a company makes a web based application using GPL components, however they use them in an "API manner", they aren't re-modifying the source GPL code and repackaging it as their own, they are just writing their own code and interfacing with the GPL code as needed. I think as long as they maintain this sort of separation, they are only fairly solid legal footing.. only if they alter the actual GPL code directly would they have to release that as open source..
Its just my understanding but I think this is the basis that most companies use it on, and a lot of companies, at least the big ones, that use open source GPL code seem to offer a good share of code back to the community, I don't think this is a major issue as I think most companies that benefit from OS respect it, open source is still a money driven business, IMO.. its just that its not in a traditional business model. actually, I remember seeing something a while back about how Linux is primarily contributed to by corporations.