Why Torvalds is sitting out the GPLv3 process (Linux.com) [LWN.net]

Why Torvalds is sitting out the GPLv3 process (Linux.com)

Posted Sep 28, 2006 7:43 UTC (Thu) by dmantione (guest, #4640)
In reply to: Why Torvalds is sitting out the GPLv3 process (Linux.com) by sepreece
Parent article: Why Torvalds is sitting out the GPLv3 process (Linux.com)

In Europe, legal agreements assume good faith between two parties. In the
US, legal texts assume bad faith between two parties.

One of the consequences is, that, as the poster says, in Europe it is
very normal that jurisprudention is spoken to the spirit of a license
text, and not to the letter of it.

I.e. in a hypothetical court case you could claim it was the intention of
the text to allow you to run modified software. A judge should then
investigate the truth of this matter and would for example read Stalman's
texts about it.

If the judge agrees the intention was to say you had to be able to run
modified software and definately can rule that a Tivo device violates the
license.

to post comments

Why Torvalds is sitting out the GPLv3 process (Linux.com)

Posted Sep 29, 2006 1:09 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (guest, #19270) [Link] (1 responses)

Hmm. Well, wouldn't the fact that other people who used the license (like Linus and the other kernel developers) said that their intentions were different also have an impact? That is, wouldn't it be the intentions of the person choosing to apply it to her software that mattered, rather than the intentions of the author of the license?

Again, IANAL, and we're talking deeply speculatively here...

Why Torvalds is sitting out the GPLv3 process (Linux.com)

Posted Sep 29, 2006 12:30 UTC (Fri) by dmantione (guest, #4640) [Link]

Sure, Torvalds intentions will propably be the most important in such a
situation.