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OLS: Enforcing the GPLOLS: Enforcing the GPLPosted Jul 26, 2004 17:24 UTC (Mon) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330)In reply to: OLS: Enforcing the GPL by piman Parent article: OLS: Enforcing the GPL
The folks on debian-legal are a bunch of amateurs. Eben Moglen, who does the enforcement for the FSF, is a law professor at Columbia University whose specialties are copyright law (as represented both in US law and in international treaties like the Berne Convention) as well as legal history. Now that FSF Europe exists, the FSF has considerable European expertise on tap as well. Debian people who are not lawyers should not assume that they know their own country's copyright laws better than Prof. Moglen does. It is arguable that the FSF's approach to GPL enforcement is too quiet, but before deciding that I suggest that you read about it.
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OLS: Enforcing the GPL Posted Jul 26, 2004 18:40 UTC (Mon) by piman (subscriber, #8957) [Link] The folks on debian-legal may be "amateurs" (some are in law school), but I would wager that they have read and dissected more copyright licenses than Prof. Moglen. And please read my message in the context of parent poster. I don't mean to insult Prof. Moglen in any way at all, I think he's a genius. But to suggest that he has the time to look into every possible infringement of the GPL is absurd; and other FSF members are also an amateurs, with much less experience than debian-legal. licensing@gnu.org isn't a direct line to a lawyer; it gets you Dave Turner. He's a smart guy, but his situation is almost exactly that of debian-legal, just less breadth. For the grandparent's idea to be implemented, the FSF would need dozens of real lawyers.That FSF Europe exists does not give the FSF any European copyright expertise by fiat. Who works for FSFE that has the kind of experience Prof. Moglen does? Or, more likely, are there just a few "amateurs" -- good at what they do, but still with little breadth of experience in licensing, and little or no legal training. I'm familiar with the FSF's approach to GPL enforcement. Good, if it works for them. It didn't work for Harald, and what he's doing now does.
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