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GPL enforcement: waiting for the MonsoonGPL enforcement: waiting for the MonsoonPosted Sep 26, 2007 19:49 UTC (Wed) by dwheeler (guest, #1216)Parent article: GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon The reason there are few "potential GPL violators out there with enough confidence to try to challenge the GPL in court" has been clear for years, as Eben Moglen's essay "Enforcing the GPL" has made clear. In particular, "The GPL only obliges you if you distribute software made from GPL'd code, and only needs to be accepted when redistribution occurs. And because no one can ever [legally] redistribute without a license, we can safely presume that anyone redistributing GPL'd software intended to accept the GPL."
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GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon Posted Sep 27, 2007 6:02 UTC (Thu) by oak (subscriber, #2786) [Link] Some questions enlightening this to product vendors:
Q: May I copy your product and all of its copyrighted source code freely?
A: NO!
Q: May you copy copyrighted GPL code into your product freely?
A: Er... Yes?
Q: Why?
<metafora representation>a lightbulb</metafora representation>
GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon Posted Sep 27, 2007 21:54 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] And because no one can ever [legally] redistribute without a license, we can safely presume that anyone redistributing GPL'd software intended to accept the GPL. While the logic is sound, I don't think it helps at all to eliminate court challenges. The dispute would be: what is this "GPL" that was accepted? There is plenty of room for dispute over what the conditions of the GPL are. What degree of linking to closed-source software is allowed before the conditions cease to be met? And then there's the question of whether a copyright license was even required. If a loadable kernel module is a derived work of the Linux kernel, then we can safely presume the distributor intended to accept the GPL. If it isn't, the distributor didn't need any license and accepting GPL is meaningless. Finally, I'd just like to state here that I hate Moglen's terminology "accept" for the license. It makes it sound like a contract, wherein there must be acceptance or there is no contract. As a license exists whether it is accepted or not, I'm sure what he means is that the distributor intended to rely on the GPL.
GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon Posted Sep 28, 2007 0:33 UTC (Fri) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] giraffedata wrote:There is plenty of room for dispute over what the conditions of the GPL are. What degree of linking to closed-source software is allowed before the conditions cease to be met? You're advised not to hold your breath waiting for SFLC to change either the USA's or any other country's copyright law to render relevant criteria like "derivative work" and "non-literal copying" intuitively easy for software engineers to understand and apply to their coding regimes. Said concepts (as implemented in USA jurisdictions, at least) are not actually very difficult as legal distinctions go, but it's advisable to read a couple of the leading court decisions, plus remove prevailing nonsense on that subject about "linking" from your mind, if present. Or, if you'd rather not study copyright court decisions, you can just avoid using substantial numbers of copyright-eligible (expressive, creative) elements of other people's works in yours, and thereby avoid encumbrance by the licensing terms (if any) of those other people's works. (When in doubt, don't.) While the logic is sound, I don't think it helps at all to eliminate court challenges. The dispute would be: what is this "GPL" that was accepted? Judges can read. So can you. ;-) Rick Moen
GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon Posted Sep 29, 2007 6:38 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Those are some valid points about copyright, but I can't see how they have anything to do with the text they quote: There is plenty of room for dispute over what the conditions of the GPL are. What degree of linking to closed-source software is allowed before the conditions cease to be met? In particular, there is not a reference to derivative works here.
While the logic is sound, I don't think it helps at all to eliminate court challenges. The dispute would be: what is this "GPL" that was accepted? And yet, judges host thousands of hours every year of argument over what perfectly legible documents just like this mean, in the context of a specific case and myriad other sources of law. There would have to be something special about GPL to believe that there's nothing disputable about it.
GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon Posted Sep 29, 2007 9:39 UTC (Sat) by rickmoen (subscriber, #6943) [Link] giraffedata wrote:In particular, there is not a reference to derivative works here. Nonetheless, that is a key legal concept whose boundaries determine precisely whether a GPLed (e.g.) work's copyright encumbrance is even relevant to whether some "degree of linking to closed-source software is allowed before the conditions cease to be met" (your phrase). That is, you asked a question that presumed that a "degree of linking" was a relevant concern. I countered, in part (spelling out my point here, more fully), that your question strongly suggests that you should review foundational concepts of copyright law, which study would reveal to you that you were asking the wrong question in the first place. (A literalist's answer to your question would have been "Mu". I was attempting to be a bit more helpful than that.) And yet, judges host thousands of hours every year of argument over what perfectly legible documents just like this mean, in the context of a specific case and myriad other sources of law. There would have to be something special about GPL to believe that there's nothing disputable about it. This would have been a wonderful objection, had I claimed there being "nothing disputable" in any potential future litigation citing the GNU General Public License. What I was saying was that your question of "What is this GPL that was accepted?" is rather silly in context: It is a conditional rights grant (now available in two exciting popular flavours) that, regardless of whether adjudicated under copyright law, contract law, or both, and regardless of applicable jurisdiction, is quite clear in its general outline and effect. Chicken-Little-ism over there being any reasonable prospect for substantive legal questions is a waste of your time and ours: There simply isn't. Rick Moen
GPL enforcement: waiting for the Monsoon Posted Sep 29, 2007 22:06 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I forgot about the derivative works angle on linking. I was thinking of more basic issue: you combine some closed source and GPL code; is it a "mere aggregation" or a "work based on the work" in GPL terms? There are various ways to combine, some of them typically called linking. That is an eminantly litigatable question, and one I can definitely see arising, even among expert copyright lawyers. This would have been a wonderful objection, had I claimed there being "nothing disputable" in any potential future litigation citing the GNU General Public License. "There simply isn't any reasonable prospect for substantive legal questions" sounds identical to "there is nothing disputable" to me, especially in this context (debating whether GPL is likely to end up in court). Regardless of the wording, I think you're saying you reach that conclusion because the GPL "is quite clear in its general outline and effect." Even if it is, that doesn't stop similarly clear documents from being litigated all the time. The details matter to people. I don't see what about the GPL makes it immune from substantive legal questions.
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