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Viral GPL Misconceptions Elegantly Explained
Scot W. Stevenson writes "Our favorite paralegal Pamela Jones of Groklaw has put together a short FUD-killer on the General Public License that explains why you can't lose your proprietary code if you inadvertently incorporate GPL code. This is not the only text of its kind, but it is so well explained that you might want to bookmark the page for future reference."
It has been proven valid in a court of law.
Not yet, it hasn't. this may change soon, but as of now... Remember that it was written by an OSS hippy, not a lawyer. Sure, lawyers suck, etc etc, but they do know how to write a document so it won't be destroyed by another lawyer. This is similar to the fact that a lawyer may learn to write code, but ti will be inferior to that of a trained developer.
It only grants rights, it doesn't take them away
Well, no. You can reuse teh software as you see fit, sort of. BSD licensing is much superior in this aspect.
The paralegal got it 1/2 right. There is a difference between a contract and a license, however, the GPL is both.
A license is one thing : permission to use something that isn't yours.
A contract is a set of obligations for two or more parties.
a EULA is a license, given if you comply with the terms of the contract (pay, release code into the GPL).
The license is revoked if you fail to comply with the contract.
But the license is the permission, not the terms.
He is correct, that you would try to suesomeone under copyright law, rather than contract law, but this has nothing to do with which laws are applicable : both are.
However, the remedies available under copyright law are much more stringent, and therefore more useful.
Under contract law, pretty much all you can get are recouped losses, and a nullification of the contract.
In the case of the GPL, the losses are nothing, since nothing was paid, and the nullification of the contract just revokes the license. That gets you back to use of the content without a license, which is handled under copyright law.
This is precisely the point, a license is NOT a contract. It's a completely different thing under law. The fact that you failed to grasp this is why the GPL FUD keeps going, and why EULA are so effective and may not even be legal.
The fact that this is backed up by several quotes from lawyers, seems to have passed you by.
Where are my mod points when I need them!
If a first you don't succeed, your a programmer...
Ahhh yes... I remember those days quite well. A Groklaw story was lucky to get 50 comments, but each and every one of them added to the conversation. Now the articles get upwards of 150-200 with tons of "me too!" comments while the real gems get buried in the rubbish.
Seems to me that Groklaw is in serious need of adopting the Slashdot moderator system.
you are correct, but you miss the point of the article. the article makes a much stronger claim, that even if you do "accidentally create a derived work" and redistribute it under a proprietary license (which is possible if you don't have perfect knowledge of what all your employees are doing) then the worst that can happen is that you get fined and forced to stop distributing your GPL-violating derived work. this argument destroys the popular claim that the punishment for GPL violations would be to force your proprietary additions to be released under the GPL.
I would also have to release my source.
This is one assumption that the article attempts to reconcile. You would not be obligated to release your source. You would have a choice to make: you could continue to release your product and distribute the source with it, or you could stop releasing your product and pay damages based on your previous infringement of copyrights. The copyright holder can't force you to release your source except as a requirement in your use continued use of the license.
One thing that's made me wonder is, if I want to use gcc or another gpl compiler, would the resultant project automatically be gpl'd? Just compiling a "hello world" program would link together several gpl'd libraries would that be considered a derivitive of the original?
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The GPL is not about giving freedom to developers, it's about giving freedom to end users. The BSD license is about giving freedom to developers, including the freedom to screw their end users. The GPL guarantees the end user of a piece of software that they have control over the software that is running on their machines, no matter who modifies that software.
Even though I'm a developer, I still prefer the GPL out of respect for my customers.
Making a derivative work of a software program IS NOT SOMETHING THAT CAN HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT.
Well, yes and no. It all depends on how you define "derivative work." This isn't explicitly defined for software in copyright law, so how the FSF defines may be different from how you define it, but neither of you would necessarily be incorrect.
Here's one example: GPL libraries. You write some non-GPL code, and then dynamically link it to a LGPL library. But unbeknownst to you, that LGPL library itself links to a GPL library (which silently relicenses the first library under the GPL). According to the FSF, you have created a derivative work of a second library, and must release it under the terms of the GPL.
It is this sort of thing that companies are worryied about. They know all too well that you can't cut and paste GPLd code into your own. They're not that stupid. But if they haven't spent the time to examine the licensing of each and every library and system call, then they'll be wise to be extra cautious.
As for me, screw them. The licensors that is. I'll do a cursory check of the licensing, but if anyone attempts to screw me over by wrapping GPL code in a LGPL interface, I'll hunt them down and force them listen to RMS sing the Free Software Song until their brains leak out their ears.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Perhaps Slashdot should add a link to Groklaw on the side of the main page, as it has done with certain other popular websites in the past (AnimeFu, Penny Arcade, Everything, etc.). That would make more sense, and it could replace the vacant spot left by the passing on of "The Filthy Critic."
--- Bwah?
The quote you give doesn't in any way contradict what the article says. This quote merely says that, when companies perceive that software subject to the GPL can only be distributed in a certain way, they may choose to distribute it under those terms rather than not distributing it at all.
What the article says is that, if they (accidentally or on purpose) do distribute GPL code under a proprietary license in violation of the terms of the GPL, they cannot be forced to release their code.
The important difference is what people (or corporate entities) choose to do, vs. what they must do. The point that MS et. al try to make about the GPL is that you could lose the right to keep your code proprietary. This, Ms. Jones contends, is simply not true. That doesn't mean that the GPL isn't a way to leverage companies into releasing code that they'd rather keep proprietary, however... which is what Stallman advocates in your snippet.
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Why the hell this post was modded +5 Interesting is beyond me, as it simply goes on slinging more FUD and further misconceptions.
The language is, in many places, ambigouous and misleading. The concept of a derived work is not explicitly defined, nor has specific attention been paid to dynamic versus static linking.
A derived work is a specific term used in the Copyright Act, and it has a very clear definition there, and has a very clear meaning based upon decades of case law. Dynamic vs. static linking is clearly delienated in the LGPL, not the GPL, which explicitly states that linking *of any kind*, static or dynamic, constitutes the creation of a derived work. The Lesser GPL relaxes this saying that dynamic linking is considered a use of the library under the license, and not the creation of a derived work.
Why should it? Any code that utilizes system calls in Linux is by definition merely USING the kernel, not creating a derived work, and even absent the clarification statement Linus Torvalds put just before the GPL in the COPYING file in all Linux distributions this should be obvious to anyone who knows how an operating system is used by programs running under it, and this issue will definitely come up if there were a court case involving this (and there probably never will be one, unless some bizzare legal strategy by SCO decides to use it).
Do you really think that Oracle's lawyers didn't take this into consideration before they decided to port Oracle to Linux? The fact that we have a lot of significant proprietary software running under Linux written by large corporations with well-funded legal teams should be sufficient to fully dispel this misconception in the mind of a layperson.
Kernel modules, on the other hand, are a completely different animal, and for the most part modules actually do incorporate large portions of real kernel code and are linked into a GPLed kernel, thus making them a derived work. While it is not in violation of any license to actually make and possibly even distribute such kernel modules, it may be a GPL violation to distribute a whole binary kernel that uses these modules.
Wouldn't such code be considered a derived work and be forced to be distributed under the terms of the GPL? Consequently, it doesn't seem possible for glibc to legally be LGPL, as it utilizes the Linux system call table and is consequently a derived work of the GPL'd Linux kernel. This opens up a whole nasty can of worms...
The system call table is mere information, and information cannot be copyrighted.
The GPL has many bizarre concessions and terms, such as requiring those who distribute GPL software to distribute it by mail at anyone's request, charging only the cost of media.
Where in the GPL does it state that you are required to do this? I don't see it anywhere. Perhaps you didn't bother to read this particular section as carefully as you should have:
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