GPL gains clout in German legal case (News.com) [LWN.net]

GPL gains clout in German legal case (News.com)

Posted Apr 23, 2004 20:36 UTC (Fri) by oak (subscriber, #2786) [Link]

How people can understand GPL so badly? "Enforcebility of GPL"????

If GPL is not a valid license (without signing any contracts), the company using GPL code is breaking copyright law blatantly. It's in company's best interests to say they GPL is a valid license because otherwise the company would have no right (in the eye of the law) to use that code.

GPL gains clout in German legal case (News.com)

Posted Apr 23, 2004 21:33 UTC (Fri) by raytd (guest, #4823) [Link]

I believe that the "enforceability" and the "validity" of a license are not necessarily the same thing. To my knowledge, Darl and Co. are the only ones claiming the GPL to be invalid.

I may have missed something (or read what I wanted to read), but I thought the article's author treated the GPL fairly and that gives me hope.

GPL gains clout in German legal case (News.com)

Posted Apr 23, 2004 23:16 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

There's no question that the GPL concept is valid (that derivative works of GPL works must be covered by the GPL). However, courts may have to decide the boundary cases that are often argued about. These are when there is some GPL code and some proprietary code, and they are loosely coupled, and not linked together in the same program, or they talk to each other through standard plugin interfaces. In such cases there is a lot of room to argue whether the GPL permits, or does not permit, this use. So the argument would not be about whether the GPL is valid or not, but rather over what it means, precisely.

I expect the issue of the legality of proprietary Linux kernel modules, or something like it, to be addressed by courts some day.

Poor understanding.

Posted Apr 29, 2004 8:44 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

While generally positive and reasonable, the journalist, like so many, shows clearly that he does not understand copyrigth-law. There are atleast two clear misunderstandings.

First the whole thing with "validity" of the GPL. The default in copyrigth-law is that only the author can copy and distribute a work. Thus if the GPL was not a valid license, the one suffering would be the person distributing the software, not the author. All too often do we hear questions about the "validity" of the GPL, with the implied assumption that if the GPL wasn't valid, anyone could do what they want with the software. That is simply not the case.

Then there's this one:

One tricky part of the GPL is the "linking" question: How tightly coupled may a proprietary software package be with GPL-covered software?

That is a problem in the realm of copyrigth, not in the realm of interpreting the GPL. How closely integrated a new work must be with an older work before the courts will start to consider the new work derived from the older is an interesting question. But the GPL has no influence on this decision.

At the very most, if the courts took a very inclusive view of "derivative", and for example said that sofware merely aggregated onto one cdrom become derivative of oneanother, then the GPL says it does not consider this to be derivation.

The opposite, however, cannot happen. If the courts say that sofware A is *NOT* a derivative of sofware B, then the licensing for B is quite simply irrelevant to A. There is nothing the author of B could have put in his licensing-terms to change this conclusion.

Poor understanding?

Posted May 12, 2004 4:55 UTC (Wed) by dmag (subscriber, #17775) [Link]

All too often do we hear questions about the "validity" of the GPL, with the implied assumption that if the GPL wasn't valid, anyone could do what they want with the software. That is simply not the case.

I agree with you but... The GPL is a "new" license. People wonder if it's valid or not because not all licenses are valid. People are always making stuff up like 'browse-wrap' licenses or "this e-mail is confidential" signatures. Suppose I post a program with the license "Anyone may copy this program, but only if you know the last digit of PI or agree to be my sex slave". The courts could easily rule that the invalid or illegal parts must be ignored (because they are unenforcable), and the remaining "anyone may copy this program" stands.

Yes, the GPL has section 7. That helps, but doesn't solve all the issues (see below).

That is a problem in the realm of copyright, not in the realm of interpreting the GPL. How closely integrated a new work must be with an older work before the courts will start to consider the new work derived from the older is an interesting question. But the GPL has no influence on this decision.

Again, I agree with both you and the article. Technically, it's not a "tricky part" of the GPL, it's a tricky part of copyright law. But this issue comes up a lot with the GPL mainly because there aren't any 'tricky' derivations with proprietary software (except to SCO.) Therefore, it is a GPL issue because it determines what the GPL covers.

For example, can I add my proprietary optimizer to GCC and sell it without giving out my source? What if I insert "do_opt()" into GCC and link in my code dynamically? Obviously, my code isn't derived, right? How about I patch the binary at run time? Does the doctrine of "First Sale" apply, allowing me to sell you a GPL program without source code? The courts have been yet to produce a fool-proof and reproducable derivative copyright test, or even agree between the different circuits.

I'm not suggesting the GPL is unenforcable in any way, just suggesting that a real court challenge (especially in the US) would be helpful to nail down the issues.