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Judicial Order in MySQL AB vs. Nusphere Suit

Posted by michael on from the lay-down-the-law dept.

bkuhn writes: "Judge Saris has ruled on the preliminary injunction motion. The Court recognizes in today's order that MySQL AB "seems to have the better argument" on the GNU GPL matter. The Court fully recognized the need for expert testimony at trial about the GNU GPL and the technical facts at hand, particularly as to why static linking of software components into a single, unified, compiled binary forms a derivative work of the original components."

5 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. "seems to have the better argument" by Pinball+Wizard · · Score: 4, Interesting

    jeez, I would say so. They wrote the program, they hold the trademark. It's theirs. They have every right to say how their name is used.

    If you don't like the way someone runs their GPL project you have one choice: fork it, and call it something else. But if NuSphere wants to sell "NuSphere MySQL" I would think it would be in its best interest to respect the trademark and hard work of its owners and inventors.

    --

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  2. Set that precident by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

    why static linking of software components into a single, unified, compiled binary forms a derivative work of the original components
    Yes, a lot of us are curious about that too. It is clear that something is derivative if it "contains" the functionality of something else, but is it Just that the licensing agreement of a minor, or even insignificant, part of the derivative work should dominate the remaining portions? For example, if you're writing a program which decodes and formats web pages and you want to include a mechanism for playback of midi files, using a library distributed under the GPL is an impossibility, because even tho it might make up less than 1% of the total code of the product, linking to the library will force the terms of the GPL onto each and every other component. This is what the GPL says - if you dont like it, dont use the software. But is this using copyright to restrict rights beyond the intention of copyright law? And like the claim that Napster made about the RIAA, does the GPL try to "use their copyrights to extend their control to [new markets]?" Guess we have to hold our breath and wait.

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    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:Set that precident by lkaos · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It is clear that something is derivative if it "contains" the functionality of something else, but is it Just that the licensing agreement of a minor, or even insignificant, part of the derivative work should dominate the remaining portions?

      It's not that the license of a small portion of the work is dominating the work. Rather, it is that the only right one has in redistributing that small portion of code, is if he agrees to all the terms of the license. In this case, the license explicitly states that the rest of the product must also carry the GPL license. It is not that the GPL causes the rest of the product to be under the GPL, but that one has no legal right to be distributing that subcomponent unless the rest of the product is under the GPL.

      Many people mistakenly refer to the GPL as viral. That gives the false impression that the GPL 'forces' other products to adopt the license. That is not true though. It's sort of like a software company saying that in order to use a certain library commerically, the library user must pay a certain royality. In this circumstance, that royality is the assurance that the code using the library is also under the GPL.

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    2. Re:Set that precident by evilviper · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Bull. You are forgetting about fair-use.

      If I found a program like 'Netscape' freely available for anyone to download on the internet, is there anything illegial about making a new frontend for it that enhances 'Netscape' (such as Galeon does with Mozilla)? You might say I don't have any right to do that, but it's just not clear if I do or not.

      The interesting thing about the GPL is that most projects don't FORCE you to agree to it. If it's found that my above senerio is legal, than it would seem that extending freely available code (where you haven't agreed to any particular license) would fall under fair use as well.

      Another pitfall of the GPL, is that you don't have the right to change the pitfalls yourself. If you FORCE me to agree to your license (click through) that only means I'm agreeing to something that explicitly tells me I don't HAVE TO agree to it, and you can't change that legally. Of course, I believe that not allowing you to change the GPL license itself (very un-GNU-ish) violates fair use by itself. (It's just a document, as long as you give credit, it should be perfectly legal.)

      The GPL has many problems, and no redeeming factors I can see (It's laughable that people think Microsoft can't embrase and extend GPLed software, even while conforming to the GPL). I'd say just go with BSD and your code will become so standardized that Microsoft won't dare change it (e.g. TCP/IP, IPSec, NFS, HTTP, FTP, et al). Not to mention that projects under different open-source license can finally take advantage of if.

      Mind you, if the judgement turns out like I believe it will, I'll be the first downloading all the GPLed software I can, and making it freely downloadable under it's non-binding GPL v2 license!

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  3. Re:Potato Potato by blakestah · · Score: 3, Interesting

    if you want to use the library then you have to distribute every other component of your product under the GPL. Therefore you are "forced" to distribute every other component under the GPL if you want to use the library.

    I think this is clearly the point of contention. Does the use of a library make a program a derivative work ?

    Remember, functionality is not copyrightable - only the specific expression in the source code is. So, for starters, if multiple libraries provide the same functionality, linking to a library does not make something a derivative work. This is a concept of a fixed boundary in copyright. The API is defined, there are multiple ways to fulfill that API, so whatever does fulfill that API does not turn the linking program into a derivative work (more specifically - it doesn't require any specific expression to work - because multiple expressions exist that allow it to work).

    So, it is 100% possible to link to a GPL'd program and not be open source and not violate the GPL. There are other issues though.

    If a library is unique, then it becomes a murky area as to whether a calling program is a derivative.

    If a library is staticly linked, another gray area.

    These are some of the things the court will sort out. However, I would not be surprised if the court finds in general that any linking to GPLd libraries does not make something a derivative.

    After all, the intended purpose of a library is to have something link to it using a public API. Therefore, it seems silly to make anything that does that a derivative. However, you could argue that any program can be turned into a library, so that using the intent of making something a library may not be good either.

    In any case, it should get interesting.