Not So Simple [LWN.net]

Not So Simple

Posted Dec 4, 2003 6:20 UTC (Thu) by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
In reply to: Not So Simple by ncm
Parent article: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract

So far as I know, you can't retract a copyright license (assuming the
licensee has not violated it). If you've offered your code under the GPL,
you can't retract that. You can stop offering this license to people in
the future, but existing licensees retain their licenses, and in the case
of the GPL, they are licensed to sublicense to others. So even if the FSF
decided to stop giving away GNU software, I would personally be permitted
by law to distribute it myself. (And all of the mirrors, for that matter,
would be properly licensed to continue to distribute it).

Of course, the FSF could release proprietary versions of GNU software,
which wouldn't be available under the GPL. But that doesn't stop someone
else from taking over the GPL development of the same tools, since
everybody who's download GNU software is properly licensed to do so. The
case of Linux is even more significant; every Linux user is licensed to
release versions of Linux under the GPL, but nobody at all is licensed to
release versions of Linux under any other license. Even Linus couldn't
take Linux proprietary. Even the entire set of Linux developers with
known contact information may not be sufficient at this point (without
significant effort put towards replacing anything whose owner could no
longer be found).

The reason that the FSF is sure to keep the copyright to all of GNU is
that they want to be able to offer later versions of it under a later
version of the GPL if one becomes necessary. If there turned out to be
some problem with the GPL, it would be extremely difficult in the case of
Linux to get the right to release it under a revised version of the GPL.
Fortunately, the current version of the GPL seems to be satisfactory.

So an implied contract isn't necessary to protect your ability to use the
code. I doubt that the fact that someone had agreed to the GPL and
released something (even something related) under it before would be
sufficient to make the GPL a contract. Or at least, it would not be a
contract for future work. If you and someone else have been working
together on a GPL project, using the GPL as your license to distribute
the others code and offering the GPL to the other, and suddenly your hard
drive crashes, destroying your only copy, you might be able to compel the
other party to send you a copy of the last version you provided under an
implied contract (the two of you exchanged valuables and agreed on the
license for the edition you've lost). Any future versions the other party
might produce, however, are new works, and not subject to the contract
(if there is one) but only to copyright.

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Not So Simple

Posted Dec 4, 2003 18:03 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

In fact, you can retract a copyright license. You just have to communicate the retraction to the people who have the old license. It's no different from telling somebody who is used to coming over for dinner Wednesday nights that he's not welcome any more. If he insists, you can have the police eject him, and charge him with trespassing.

Furthermore, the GPL doesn't give you the right to sublicense the original work; everybody who gets a copy gets the right to re-distribute from the original licensor, not from you. (You are obliged to extend them rights to re-distribute your own contribution.)

The GPL only says what it says. You can read it and find out what it says, we don't need to speculate.

Not So Simple

Posted Dec 5, 2003 14:51 UTC (Fri) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link]

Revoking a license is not the same as uninviting someone to dinner, and evicting them for trespassing if they do. It's much more like telling someone that they couldn't have come over for dinner last week, when you happily served them, and then immediately demanding your time, food, and occupied space back.

Not So Simple

Posted Dec 7, 2003 23:37 UTC (Sun) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

This is getting silly.

Copyright law is about publishing. If you give somebody license to publish your book this year, you can decide to have somebody else publish it next year. Withdrawing your permission doesn't mean they have to recall and destroy all the books they published. It means they have to stop publishing. That's all it means.

The case of software distribution is the same. When your license to publish is withdrawn, you just have to stop publishing. If you have a derived work, you should make sure that they have promised not to withdraw permission. The FSF makes that promise.

Not So Simple

Posted Mar 5, 2004 21:49 UTC (Fri) by crythias (guest, #19997) [Link]

From Parent:
Furthermore, the GPL doesn't give you the right to sublicense the original work; everybody who gets a copy gets the right to re-distribute from the original licensor, not from you. (You are obliged to extend them rights to re-distribute your own contribution.)

I just wanted to make sure that this point isn't left unanswered:
From the GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt):
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's
source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you
conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate
copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the
notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty;
and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License
along with the Program.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following: [Provide a reasonable way for recipient to obtain the source from you]
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the
Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the
original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to
these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further
restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein.
You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to
this License.
-=-=-=-=-
The GPL is a fully cascadable license. Each recipient of GPL code can be a distributor. The only true option of a copyright holder (not GPL licensee!) is to distribute a (hopefully, revised, updated, better) new program under a different (perhaps, proprietary) license. Even if the copyright holder revokes the GPL, the acceptors of the GPL version of the code (source or object), even 2-3 levels deep, because they accepted a viable license, have to have full faith and credit of the license they received.

Basically, GPL isn't intended to be revokable. If that may be one's intent, one shouldn't use GPL.