On Novell and Microsoft

On Novell and Microsoft

Posted Nov 8, 2006 21:15 UTC (Wed) by pimlott (subscriber, #1535)
In reply to: On Novell and Microsoft by BrucePerens
Parent article: On Novell and Microsoft

Bruce, the license text you cited is a "for example", expressly meant to clarify what was already implied. Your position would be stronger if you could argue it from the rest of the license. I claim that you cannot, because the author of the GPLv2 blundered: This "example" does not follow from the rest of the license, and is therefore void. I have stated this case before [cite] [cite] and never gotten a satisfactory answer. I also contributed it to the GPLv3 comment process, [cite] [cite], because I believe v3 section 12 has the same problem as v2 section 7; I also just noticed Alexander Oliva's cunning observation of what it might mean for SUSE customers.

In short, I concur with iabervon's position. I also find it disappointing that the FSF and Eben Moglen continue to assert their interpretation of v2 section 7 without ever justifying it, and that they have not responded to criticism of v3 section 12.

The current draft of GPLv3 does contain explicit language (section 11) that would, I believe, be usable against Novell, and this is a good thing as far as I'm concerned. However, this only strengthens my belief that GPLv2 is lacking in this regard. But I would be happy to be convinced otherwise.

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