GPL and private contracts

Posted Mar 24, 2007 16:10 UTC (Sat) by malor (guest, #2973)
In reply to: GPL and private contracts by giraffedata
Parent article: The Torvalds Transcript (InformationWeek)

> "Maybe I could say, "unlike conventional copyright licenses, GPL interferes in transactions in ways in which the copyright owner doesn't have a material interest."

No, you can't say that either. As the other poster points out, the copyright owner most emphatically DOES have a material interest in all reproductions of the copyrighted work.

You get the unique ability to reproduce *and modify* the work freely, in exchange for ensuring that everyone downstream from you has the exact same rights that you do.

Again: yes, the GPL changes the nature of the relationship you can have with a customer. If you don't like that, you can pay for code with money, or you can use BSD licensed programs instead. You don't have to accept the GPL if the unique privileges and powerful utilities it offers aren't worth the price. v3 makes the price a little steeper, but I think only irrational people can argue that v2 wouldn't have said exactly the same thing if DRM had existed twenty years ago.

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GPL and private contracts

Posted Mar 24, 2007 18:16 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (4 responses)

Maybe I could say, "unlike conventional copyright licenses, GPL interferes in transactions in ways in which the copyright owner doesn't have a material interest.
No, you can't say that either. As the other poster points out, the copyright owner most emphatically DOES have a material interest in all reproductions of the copyrighted work.

Irrelevant; the quote above doesn't say anything about material interest in the reproduction. It talks about material interest in ways of interfering with a transaction.

You don't have a material interest in whether some stranger gets the source code for some code written by someone else. Through the magic of GPL, you may control it anyway.

And don't try to define "material interest" so that all interests are material. There's a separate term for a reason.

GPL and private contracts

Posted Mar 25, 2007 0:38 UTC (Sun) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (3 responses)

> You don't have a material interest in whether some stranger gets the source code for some code written by someone else. Through the magic of GPL, you may control it anyway.

If you are commercial, you have an interest in making sure you get paid for all copies of your code. If you are GPL, you have an interest in making sure anyone that adds to your program honors the license.

Both types of code have a price. One is money, but allows the freedom to keep your code closed. The other is usually low- or no-cost, but denies you freedom to hide your code.

Pay one or the other, your choice.

(or go BSD code, if you prefer.)

GPL and private contracts

Posted Mar 25, 2007 0:53 UTC (Sun) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link] (2 responses)

Both types of code have a price. One is money, but allows the freedom to keep your code closed. The other is usually low- or no-cost, but denies you freedom to hide your code.

This is wrong. You can certainly keep your modifications to GPL code secret. If you distribute the modified code, you have to share the source to the changes.

Note that in the case of closed source you don't have the right to distribute anything, not the original version nor your modified one.

GPL and private contracts

Posted Mar 25, 2007 0:57 UTC (Sun) by malor (guest, #2973) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, this is true, but this particular thread is talking about a chain of people, from A to B to C to D. giraffe seems to be asserting that the GPL is somehow unethical or something in that it 'interferes with' other business relationships, and I'm trying to point that this is the PRICE of using the code, and that it's entirely optional. If you don't like the price, buy commercial code instead.

You give up rights in either case, it's just a matter of which rights fit your particular situation the best.

GPL and private contracts

Posted Mar 25, 2007 1:15 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link]

giraffe seems to be asserting that the GPL is somehow unethical or something in that it 'interferes with'

It's "or something," and in particular I'm asserting that GPL is unusual among copyright licensing schemes. Nothing more. I jumped into this thread when someone made an incorrect statement about what one can do with GPL code, based on reasoning that would be sound for any conventional licensing scheme. I went beyond correcting the particular misstatement to explain you have to use a whole different mindset when looking at what's allowed with GPL code.

The misstatement, IIRC, was that a downstream distributor could make a private deal with his distribuee in which the latter doesn't avail himself of GPL freedoms, and the copyright owner wouldn't have anything to say about it.