Red Hat's options are limited

Red Hat's options are limited

Posted Jul 14, 2006 15:05 UTC (Fri) by pimlott (subscriber, #1535)
In reply to: Red Hat's options are limited by JoeBuck
Parent article: Open source IP case puts spotlight on patents (SearchOpenSource)

Sorry to turn this into a GPL spat, but that interpretation of section 7 makes no sense to me (and nobody has been able to make it make sense, even though it seems to be the intended interpretation). "Your obligations under this License" are to grant certain permissions as far as you are concerned. It's absurd in general to require you to ensure that no third party places any restrictions on these permissions. If you interpret section 7 that way, it means I cannot distribute GPL software if I am aware (maybe even if I am unaware) of any country where it is illegal or encumbered, or if there might be some recipient who is barred from redistributing by his employment agreement, etc. The "for example" in section 7 does not follow from the preceding text, and so should be ignored.

In short, as long as my settlement with the patent holder doesn't directly prohibit me from distributing under the GPL, I claim I can go right ahead, even if it may put my recipients at risk.

(I'm talking only about GPL 2; I know that GPL 3 will change this.)

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