A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 22, 2016 1:13 UTC (Sun) by happylemur (subscriber, #95669)
In reply to: A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code by giraffedata
Parent article: A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

This case is probably the highest-profile example of statutory damages for copyright infringement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitol_Records,_Inc._v._Th...

A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 22, 2016 3:03 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (guest, #1954) [Link] (1 responses)

Thanks. That sort of blows a hole in the idea that if the copyright holder isn't damaged then there is no liability and makes us rely for CDDL-GPL compatibility on the hypothetical power of a court to enforce the spirit of a copyright license, expanding the permission to copy beyond what the copyright holder actually said.

A discussion on combining CDDL and GPL code

Posted May 23, 2016 11:01 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

The statutory damages risk makes for a compelling argument, indeed.

You still need to persuade a court that there has been a copyright violation though, in distributing a derivative of CDDLed and GPLed works. I think the Eblen Moglen and Mishi Choudhary paper is more examining that question, than the damages issue, if I understand correctly (also, I don't think the paper is taking the firm position on the CDDL/GPL issue that this LWN article seems to paint; if Choudhary took a firm stance in the talk, the paper does not have it). That paper makes an interesting point on literal readings: under a very literal reading, one could not combine BSD or other code considered "GPL compatible" with GPL code, without explicit relicensing to GPL.

Interesting stuff.