GPL does not ask you to give up rights. [LWN.net]

GPL does not ask you to give up rights.

Posted Mar 2, 2011 15:56 UTC (Wed) by JesseW (subscriber, #41816)
In reply to: GPL does not ask you to give up rights. by jthill
Parent article: Red Hat's "obfuscated" kernel source

Come on -- you know as well as I what the clarification that makes the examples you listed legal is: Fair use (or fair dealing in other jurisdictions). Leaving aside that little bit of snark, the point is that a derivative work has multiple copyright holders. You don't dispute that.

I'm not sure what "to the extent that you have copyright on the result, it's due to your contribution" even means. What "result" -- the derivative work? What "contribution", exactly? The specific lines of code that were not present before? What about lines that were modified (say by changing a "==" to "!=")? Whose "contribution" are they?

The reason you can't charge for a distribution license on the derivative (not "resulting" -- it's a work derived from the existing work, which you were allowed to derive from (and copy, and distribute, etc.) by following the terms of the GPL) work is that you are not the sole copyright holder for it. If you get the agreement of all the copyright holders, you all can certainly refuse to grant additional licenses without payment.

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GPL does not ask you to give up rights.

Posted Mar 2, 2011 23:52 UTC (Wed) by jthill (subscriber, #56558) [Link] (4 responses)

you know as well as I what the clarification that makes the examples you listed legal

If you check back you'll see I didn't ask for a clarification that would explain why those examples are legal. I asked for a clarification that explains how an assertion about requirements on private derivation is relevant in a discussion about exercising licensed public distribution. The rebuke for the gratuitous overreach on private use stands.

I'm not sure what "to the extent that you have copyright on the result, it's due to your contribution" even means.

Well, I kind of took it as read that copyright in GPL'd works is almost entirely due to application of authors' patches, and that reverting an author's changes means that author has no copyright on the resulting work. Patches are contributions in any sense of the word, contributions in other forms are generally also revertible, "contributor" is the word v3 uses, and the exact extent of the changes necessary to excise an author's copyright interest is irrelevant here. That all seemed so obvious it needed no more than acknowledgment.

If you get the agreement of all the copyright holders, you all can certainly refuse to grant additional licenses without payment.

I think you might have missed that that makes my point: with unrestricted copyright authority, one can demand money for a distribution license. Authors employing the GPL ask that you (as they do) not exercise that and other rights in exchange for the GPL's benefits. You have to give up either the rights or the license to get the other.

To finish bringing it back on topic, Red Hat offers timely, warranted service in exchange for your not exercising the GPL the instant you receive it. You have to give up either the right or the service to get the other.

Don't forget that you (as Red Hat does) still get the software courtesy of the GPL, nor that Red Hat also makes sure no one loses what I think most people regard as its main benefit: they also distribute their work freely. They do so after a delay that takes it out of the realm of service, i.e. current work for which it's ethical to charge the people who want it right now, and into the realm of adequately compensated work that can be distributed at no cost. That they do so completes the GPL's positive-feedback loop.

Publishing a repo is on its way to being the standard way to distribute GPL'd and other free software, but it seems in Red Hat's experience it's only possible to distribute their complete set in a way a little more like software was ordinarily distributed when the GPL was written -- mostly tarballs as I recall, but I wasn't tracking then -- if they want to execute their business model. OK. That feedback loop is what I care about.

GPL does not ask you to give up rights.

Posted Mar 3, 2011 3:23 UTC (Thu) by JesseW (subscriber, #41816) [Link] (3 responses)

OK, I think we are coming to more of an understanding here. You are pointing out differences between two situations:

Distributing software while relying on (one or more) GPL grants by other copyright holders (whether or not you also have some copyright interest in the software), and
Distributing software for which you are the sole copyright holder.

You are claiming (correctly) that you can demand payment for permission to further distribute the software only in the 2nd case, not in the 1st. I agree.

You are claiming that demanding payment for further distribution is a "right" in both cases, which the GPL demands you "give up" in the 1st case. I disagree. I claim that, in the 1st case, you have no right (except for fair use) to distribute the software or permit further distribution (with or without payment). The GPL provides you the ability to distribute the software, but does not provide you the ability to prevent further distribution. You are giving up no right.

As for the Red Hat situation, I don't have a strong opinion one way or another. I tend to agree with the your analysis, since, as you pointed out, a RH subscriber loses nothing if they distribute the materials after their subscription expires.

GPL does not ask you to give up rights.

Posted Mar 3, 2011 6:03 UTC (Thu) by jthill (subscriber, #56558) [Link] (2 responses)

You're presenting a false dichotomy between the GPL and no license at all, and confusing a license to distribute with the right to dictate terms.

The only reason you are constrained at all is that the other copyright holders have the right to dictate license terms. If you create a derived work, you are one of those copyright holders, and you also have the right to dictate terms. If you can't all arrive at a compatible set of terms for a license to distribute, then none of you can distribute — but only because you and they have the right to dictate terms.

Two of the infinite myriad of possible sets of terms you and the other copyright holders may offer are

BSD: you retain, you may exercise, your right to offer any terms at all for a license to your own work, your own copyright interest, in any derived work. You may stipulate any restrictions and charge any fee.

GPL: you give up, you may not exercise, that right: if you distribute at all you must offer specific permissions at no charge.

GPL does not ask you to give up rights.

Posted Mar 4, 2011 23:58 UTC (Fri) by cas (guest, #52554) [Link] (1 responses)

the point you are missing is that in both cases (BSD licensed code and GPL licensed) code, the ability to distribute derived works is *NOT* a right, it is a permission granted by the license of the original work.

without permission being granted, you have no right to distribute works derived from other people's copyrighted works.

i suspect that what is confusing you on this issue is that BSD and GPL have different conditions on that grant of permission, but (in the context of this argument) that is irrelevant.

BSD code is not public domain, any more than GPL code is.

GPL does not ask you to give up rights.

Posted Mar 5, 2011 2:27 UTC (Sat) by jthill (subscriber, #56558) [Link]

Hi, no, please find (at least) all uses of the phrase "the right to" in the history of this conversation. I certainly didn't make that mistake.