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Revocable GPL (Groklaw)Revocable GPL (Groklaw)Posted Jan 29, 2008 7:28 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165)In reply to: Revocable GPL (Groklaw) by Ross Parent article: The Non-Revocable GPL (Groklaw)
Sorry, no. Each person who gets the software gets a license grant. 100 people, 100 license grants. Each license grant comes directly from the owner, automatically according to the published terms. After the owner elects to stop issuing licenses, then that's how many there are. Those 100 licensees can keep distributing until such time as they violate the terms, then they lose the grant. It might be nice if the licenses actually attached to the software, but the law applies to people. Only a person can receive a license grant. I am not a lawyer.
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Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 9:29 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] The GPL is a legaly-binding promise anyone getting downstream code is automatically granted a license to do all sorts of stuff with it by the original authors. So you're right the licenses stem from the authors not the intermediaries. However given these authors made the promise to automatically grant them in the future with no time limit, they can't elect to stop issuing them later. The law is very careful about people not reneging on past promises.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 19:12 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] The law is very *complicated* about people reneging on past promises. What was promised? To whom? In exchange for what? For how long? There are volumes and volumes of case law exploring these questions in thousands of different circumstances, with sqrt(n) contradictory answers. "In exchange for what?" makes a big difference in court. You're not usually obliged to continue giving somebody something for free just because you did so in the past, even if you said you would: This year: "sure, pick my apples, otherwise they go to waste." Next year: "my insurance company says I can't let you climb my tree any more." Then there's transfer of ownership. "Yes, the previous landowner let you pick his apples. But now I own the land. I never promised you anything. Take a hike." The law doesn't respond very well to wishful thinking.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 19:54 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link] The term you are avoiding mention is called promissory estoppal. The GPL is not only a license fundamentally it's also a contract. Beyond that the author of the code can refuse to grant licenses on NEW code he adds to the original code but he CANNOT revoke the GPL. As the commentators to your original post have tried to point out when you distribute the code under the GPL you give every license the right to distribute and sub-license the code to anyone they please. The GPL has this provision for the simple reason that Stallman had the original goal in writing the license such that people couldn't come back and take the code away after it was GPL'd. Again, every original license to the code can issue new licenses to the code without the authors permission, in addition if they distribute the code in binary format they are obligated to provide every sub-license with source code at request for a minimum of 3 years from issuance from the binaries. You need to go back and re-read what PJ wrote because you didn't understand.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 22:49 UTC (Tue) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] Look, ponies, ponies, everywhere! > "... when you distribute the code under the GPL you give every license the right to distribute and sub-license the code to anyone they please." Nobody can "sub-license" but the copyright owner. That's even acknowledged in the text of the GPL. The FSF requires copyright assignments for everything they distribute. It's a lot of trouble for them and for everybody else, and they wouldn't be doing it without compelling reasons. One effect of the practice is that no one can revoke the license on any FSF code, in any jurisdiction, except where the law makes specific exception. That seems like a good thing. (The specific exception I know about is the 35-year U.S. rule.) There's lots of case law around estoppel, and laches, and moonbeams. You can say the GPL is a contract, but that doesn't make it one. Its authors say specifically that it's not one, and that they were very careful not to make it one, for compelling reasons. Contract law is a cesspit.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 30, 2008 2:18 UTC (Wed) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] I am unconvinced that this is the FSF's reasoning. I've never heard anyone associated with the FSF mention it -- indeed, they give other reasons[1] -- and the FSF accepts either a copyright assignment *or* a disclaimer of copyright interest/public domain assignment. The latter is hardly *less* problematic than the GPL vis a vis revocability and other such ugly corners of the law. Maybe they *should* be worried about the scenario you raise, but are they? [1] http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 30, 2008 3:42 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] The FSF has very scrupulously never addressed the topic in public at all, to my knowledge. Eben Moglen didn't reply to my questions on the topic. My opinion is that it will take explicit legislation before we can have any clarity on the subject. In the meantime, we only need to worry about a few specific packages that have been retracted, and even there we can limit our actions to worrying. If the copyright owner starts bothering people, we have a known workaround. In Linux, we might find a driver must be pulled out, and maybe distributed separately.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 9:30 UTC (Tue) by kripkenstein (subscriber, #43281) [Link] Those 100 people have licenses, and that license permits them to distribute it to more people, under the GPL, and so on and so forth. Yes, you can't get new copies *from the original author*. But who cares, get them from a single person who did get it from the author a ways back. In this way a GPLed source can never be revoked, _unless_ somehow all copies vanish from the internet.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 14:54 UTC (Tue) by charlieb (subscriber, #23340) [Link] > In this way a GPLed source can never be revoked, _unless_ somehow > all copies vanish from the internet. Which, from just a little searching, appears to have happened here. Anyone have a URL?
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 16:37 UTC (Tue) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] Can't happen. Just need one person who has a copy stashed away somewhere.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Jan 29, 2008 18:37 UTC (Tue) by Ross (subscriber, #4065) [Link] I agree. And if nobody has any copies of the GPLed software, then nobody has the right to ask for source code, and the GPL isn't really a factor.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Feb 1, 2008 21:36 UTC (Fri) by lysse (guest, #3190) [Link] Have you raised this concern with the FSF? If it's a legitimate concern, (a) they need to hear about it, and (b) they must have thought of it themselves. However, I think you're wrong, and here's why: The GPL, as applied by the author of a work to that work at the point of distribution, allows anyone who receives the work to redistribute it under the terms of the GPL. Not to relicense it under the GPL, but merely to redistribute it under those terms. The terms of the GPL, of course, allow any recipient of the software to redistribute it under the terms of the GPL. There's an infinite loop built in there, and that's what stops it being a one-step-only process. If the first redistribution is possible, the inherent loop makes every subsequent one allowable.
Revocable GPL (Groklaw) Posted Feb 2, 2008 6:04 UTC (Sat) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link] I suggest searching "begging the question" on Google.
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