Single-company free software

Posted Oct 11, 2005 23:22 UTC (Tue) by Ross (guest, #4065)
In reply to: Single-company free software by lutchann
Parent article: Single-company free software

Discussion about revokability of the GPL came up when the nmap author forbid SCO from using his software due to their claiming that the GPL was invalid. Also with DJB's software with it's lack of real license.

As for the point about licensing: licenses have to work that way. The only person who can license a copyrighted work is the copyright holder. They may give permission for another to sublicense, but that only works because they are acting under the copyright holder's authority. A copyright isn't ever transferred through licensing, GPL or otherwise. The point is not that the copyright holder doesn't have absolute authority over distribution with the GPL, but that they do have such authority and chose to use it to grant sublicensing rights with only minimal restrictions. They can't "ungrant" those later, as there was no provision in the original license for that to happen. IANAL either.

Single-company free software

Posted Oct 12, 2005 18:02 UTC (Wed) by MathFox (guest, #6104) [Link]

I am not a lawyer either, but IMO revocation of a written offer requires at least a written revocation. Thanks to the GPL every owner of a copy of the sourcecode has the right to redistribute and relicense. It won't be trivial to send out revocation notices to all redistributors of your code. It is more difficult than the RIAA and MPAA task to track P2P users, a John Doe lawsuit shouldn't work against someone who legimately distributes your code.

If you succeeded in taking this notification hurdle, the real legal fun will start. You will be asked to pay damages for revocation of distribution rights, people will object to revocation of their rights to use the code, etc. I can not tell beforehand how the lawsuits will work out in all relevant jurisdictions, I don't expect that you'll win the ~100 lawsuits easily.

Nmap Non-Revocation

Posted Oct 13, 2005 6:50 UTC (Thu) by fyodor (guest, #3481) [Link]

Discussion about revokability of the GPL came up when the nmap author forbid SCO from using his software due to their claiming that the GPL was invalid.

I was not arguing (nor do I believe) that the GPL can be revoked in the general case. The SCO issue was based on specific language within the GPL clause 5: "You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License." To the best of my knowlege, SCO has ceased distribution of Nmap in accordance with my demand (If anyone catches them still distributing it, let me know).

As for the Nessus issue, I have already sent out a response for the Nmap Security Scanner Project. We aren't planning to follow suit. Nmap has been GPL since its release more than 8 years ago and I am happy with that license.

-Fyodor