Sponsored link
Serve your customers, not your servers, with VERIO Linux VPS. Full-access test-drive here.
| Weekly edition | Kernel | Security | Distributions | Search |
| Archives | Calendar | Subscribe | Write for LWN | LWN.net FAQ |
On Novell and Microsoft
On Novell and Microsoft
Posted Nov 8, 2006 0:45 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510)In reply to: On Novell and Microsoft by iabervon
Parent article: On Novell and Microsoft
Oops. I garbled above. Strike the last two paragraphs and here's the correction:
And the GPL doesn't even cover running programs, which is a fair use right under copyright law, but requires a license for patents.
The GPL says "The act of running the program is not restricted" and the language which places activities like use out of its scope is meant to say that those activities are not restricted. Elsewhere in the license is language that does not allow further restrictions upon GPL software, be they for running or any other purpose. So, I don't think a judge would rule that a patent license that allowed distribution but not running would be within the terms of the GPL.
(Log in to post comments)