It's not misconceptions - it's just omitted step
It's not misconceptions - it's just omitted step
Posted Oct 5, 2008 7:28 UTC (Sun) by khim (subscriber, #9252)In reply to: Common misconception by gmaxwell
Parent article: Plugging into GCC
The misunderstanding comes from skipping straight to (2) without first considering (1).
May be some people (like drag above) have this misconception, but people actually involved (RMS and FSF) surely don't. They see nVidia, they see Broadcom and ask "how can we prevent THIS?" and "should we actually try to prevent THIS?". And yes - this IS about case where plugins developer does not distribute GCC itself...
Sorry, but you are coming from wrong side. You are cosidring what is
convenient (of course distribution of proprietary plugin with GCC is more
convinient then distribution without GCC) and then think about
copyrights. The makers of proprietary plugins come from different side:
1) We want to distribute our "cool technology" as proprietary plugin to
GCC
2) Can we bundle them and distribute GCC and our cool technology
together?
3) No? Well - too bad, we need chapter in documentation about downloading
process...
Think about Microsoft/Novell deal: how proud Microsoft was when their lawers found the loophole which allowed them to sign a deal which was supposed to be prevented by GPL! It's security - you should always think about the "weak part"...
Posted Oct 6, 2008 1:59 UTC (Mon)
by gmaxwell (guest, #30048)
[Link]
Posted Oct 9, 2008 4:24 UTC (Thu)
by lysse (guest, #3190)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Oct 9, 2008 7:49 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (1 responses)
The fact is: "experienced copyright lawyers" often are wrong when they
discuss copyright licenses too. They just prepend every sentence with "this
is my opinion, if you want legal advice I'll need more detail" so their
mistakes are overlooked. The only entity which can know the legal
position is Supreme Court (by definition) - and then the relevant position
will be true only in one country. And it'll be entirely too silly to just
go in dark because we can not get supreme courts opinions on the GCC
plugins matter. To even approach something resembling legal position
you need understanding of both copyright and technology
(think SCO: do you think they prepared their insane legal theories without
help of copyright lawers?) - and such people are rare and not all of them
have lawers degree. Thankfully one of them is working on the case and I
hope soon we'll get something "official"...
Posted Oct 9, 2008 13:38 UTC (Thu)
by lysse (guest, #3190)
[Link]
But cluefulness is not binary, and they have rather more than you do.
It's not misconceptions - it's just omitted step
Can everyone who is not an experienced copyright lawyer please refrain from jumping up and down and loudly insisting that they know what the legal position is? You might have an opinion about what the legal position should be; that's fine - but to claim any more than that without the appropriate expertise overreaches.
It's not misconceptions - it's just omitted step
Experienced copyright lawyer? Who's that? Why he's infallible?
Experienced copyright lawyer? Who's that? Why he's infallible?
> when they discuss copyright licenses too.