| |||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||
The GPL Is a Contract about a LicenseThe GPL Is a Contract about a LicensePosted Dec 5, 2003 17:25 UTC (Fri) by danw6144 (guest, #14336)Parent article: The GPL Is a License, not a Contract
"A defendant cannot simultaneously assert that the GPL is valid permission for his distribution and also assert that it is not a valid copyright license, which is why defendants do not 'challenge' the GPL." --- Eben Moglen
(Log in to post comments)
The GPL Is a Contract about a License Posted Dec 5, 2003 22:22 UTC (Fri) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] "A defendant cannot simultaneously assert that the GPL is valid permission for his distribution and also assert that it is not a valid copyright license, which is why defendants do not 'challenge' the GPL." --- Eben Moglen
This statement is plain moonshine nonsense. Ever hear of SCO v. IBM (2003) ? The SCO Group is asserting just such a claim. The SCO Group is not the defendant in SCO v. IBM, which is why their name comes first, they're the ones who filed the suit, etc, etc. The prosecution is free to claim that the GPL is invalid, or that a particular GPLd work is invalid (by virtue of it not being legal to GPL it in the first place). The defendant usually doesn't claim anything, except that the prosecution is wrong. (What's with the word "moonshine" today? ...)
The GPL Is a Contract about a License Posted Dec 6, 2003 1:06 UTC (Sat) by danw6144 (guest, #14336) [Link] IBM as counterclaim plaintiff filed against the SCOG as counterclaim defendant. SCOG has asserted the invalidity of the GPL as a defense in SCO v IBM.
The GPL Is a Contract about a License Posted Dec 11, 2003 15:47 UTC (Thu) by mik (guest, #87) [Link] Huh? Moglen is merely expressing that such an assertion is nonsensical, not that some entity could not utter those words. At least superficially, it would seem to be equivalent to X&&!X, but presumes that there is no other means by which an entity could acquire blanket rights to copyrighted code licensed only under GPL.Indeed, SCO seems to be preparing to assert the theory (1) that GPL is an invalid license, (2) therefore there is no legal license to use/distribute GLPed code, (3) in order to prevent immeasurable financial damage to the industry due to the loss of legal right-to-use, all GLPed code should be assigned to the public domain, thus (4) gaining SCO the rights to use whatever they want. Doesn't seem too likely to succeed, but then IANAJ.
SCO's wacky legal theories Posted Dec 13, 2003 4:46 UTC (Sat) by goaty (guest, #17783) [Link] I love (3), there's a sort of crazed genius to it. Of course, if all GPL'd code was assigned to the public domain, that would amount to confiscation of "intellectual property" on a massive scale. I've no idea what the rules are for confiscation of property, but I'm pretty sure a court can't go confiscating property belonging to people who are not parties to the trial, so the US Government would have to do it. And if the US Government confiscated all GPL software, all us non-US copyright holders would be writing to our political representatives pretty sharpish :-)But I don't think even that would get SCO out of jail. After all, they've already been distributing GPL software for quite some time. No, they need to claim that all GPL'd code is already de-facto public domain, by some sort of intellectual-property version of a "right of way". But then the same "right of way" theory would clearly make Unix public domain too (assuming that it isn't already). What's delightful about this is it basically trashes copyright law, but in completely the opposite way to their other wacky legal theory (the "we own all software ever" one). It would also achieve many of the aims of the FSF were this to become law. It's funny how much SCO's argument resembles:
|
|
||||||||||||