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Ask FSF General Counsel Eben Moglen
Columbia Law School professor Eben Moglen has been the Free Software Foundation's (pro bono) general counsel since 1993. He's also involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and has been mentioned on Slashdot a number of times because of his participation in these groups and some of the worthy causes they support, as well as other freedom-related matters. One question per post, please. We'll run Prof. Moglen's answers to 10 of the highest-moderated questions as soon as he gets them back to us.
Do you see a contradiction in RMS's pressure to have people prefix Linux with GNU (credit where credit is due), and his assertion that the BSD license isn't (wasn't?) "Free" because it forced you to include copyright notices (which is also "credit where credit is due")?
Two ways to look at this.
One you are letting people use GPL software, but don't want release the code. You could claim this is like distributing it as you are given direct access to the program. This might be a licensing hole.
Second is you are providing a service using GPL software. You are explicitly not distributing the software, you are just using it internally to provide a service. You shouldn't have to distribute it.
There are at least those two interpretations.
I understand the first, but I agree with the second more. Just because I let you view documents from a GPL web server doesn't mean I should have to give you the source.
I've often heard that one of the weaknesses of the GPL is that is basically unproven in court. Some folks say that this is because it is so well crafted that most violations are cut and dry and there is little or no need to go to court. Although I don't know enough to either agree or disagree with that, I'd like to see some judge throw the book at someone for GPL violations. Note that I'm not talking about any particular revision of the (L)GPL, but the extended concept of forcing people who use GPL based software to make the changes available.
What are your thoughts on the necessity of having a ruling, surviving appeal, and generally working its way into our legal culture? Will it give us pro-GPL folks a "big stick" for thwacking violators? Is it even necessary? Has it already happened and I missed it?
Do you think that frivolous lawsuits create an environment where people don't take license agreements seriously (this could apply to either a GPL style agreement or to a non-free commercial EULA).
Any ideas on how these types of lawsuits might be curtailed?
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I see a future where nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and weapons that we cannot even dream of can and will be manufactured and used by nearly anyone with the time, funds, and motivation. A jealous boyfriend could decide to take out neighborhood with a nerve agent; a road-raged driver could toss a vial of engineered influenza at an offending traffic jam; a religious zealot could obliterate a city with a nuclear weapon. Is this future really speculative? Or is it the product of the inevitable march of technological "progress" that will continue until 9/11 is reduced to a quaint footnote in history? Is
After losing, say, several major metropolitan areas here and after watching the extermination of millions or billions elsewhere on the planet, is it too far-fetched to say that the American public will beg the government to take away every last vestige of its privacy? To establish a world where every action that could possibly pose a threat will be monitored, recorded, and analyzed?
My question is whether that day has already arrived, and if not, then what events will have to transpire before we willingly give up our rights to privacy in return for security? Will the delay to impose "big brother" controls only serve to hasten the demise of this Camelot of freedom that we have enjoyed for the last two centuries?