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From the customer's perspective
From the customer's perspective
Posted Dec 4, 2003 4:59 UTC (Thu) by error27 (subscriber, #8346)Parent article: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract
Thank you for clearing that up.
I have another question. What would happen if I purchased software that was licensed under the terms of the GPL? Let's imagine that the software printed a message that it was licensed under the terms of the GPL when it started. Would there be any legal recourse if I asked them for source code and they refused? Is there any way I could ask a judge to force them to give me the source code?
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Short answer: no
Posted Dec 4, 2003 5:23 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
Only the copyright holder has standing to sue for violation of copyright.
From the customer's perspective
Posted Dec 4, 2003 5:31 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]
My guess is that it depends. If they promised you that the software was under the GPL, I would assume that this promise to you is enforceable (especially if you paid them cash; in that case there's a contract, but it isn't the GPL, it's the deal between you and them). If they didn't make such a promise, but it turns out that they are shipping GPLed code, then they are engaging in copyright infringement, so it would be up to the copyright holder to enforce the copyright, and they couldn't be forced to relicense the part of the work that they own.
One thing I have no idea about is whether GPL violation can ever be a criminal rather than a civil matter, as other forms of copyright infringement can be.
From the customer's perspective
Posted Dec 4, 2003 10:18 UTC (Thu) by MathFox (subscriber, #6104) [Link]
One thing I have no idea about is whether GPL violation can ever be a criminal rather than a civil matter, as other forms of copyright infringement can be.Legally seen: copyright infringement is copyright infringement and you can be criminally prosecuted for GPL infringement. So far the theory. In practice I don't think that a prosecutor will go after a GPL violator because
- there is little economic damage done,
- they lack specific knowledge about free software,
- GPL violations aren't allways clear cut. (It is easy to hide a "written offer" for sourcecode within 4.7 Gb of data.)