GPLv3's Implications Hitting Home For Lawyers

Specter writes "The GPL version 3 is getting some attention in legal circles, especially as it relates to its interaction with proprietary software and patents. Edmund J. Walsh penned an article for Law.com discussing the GPLv3 and the risks it poses for hardware and software companies."

Comments

Neeeehhh, What's up, Doc?

[Stanistani]

Google: Bugs Bunny maroon

Re:What a stupid article

[mhall119]

Not only that, but he used the settlements of lawsuits from GPLv2 code to demonstrate what GPLv3 is doing to businesses. He also went on to imply that provisions of the Affero GPL were provisions of the GPL itself. Nothing in this article could be described as informed.

It was basically "I heard some things about the new GPL, and that there were some lawsuits about open-source code, so I'm going to write a definitive article explaining all the nuances and traps that businesses should be afraid of."

Re:Lawyer he may be...

[morgan_greywolf]

Did you read the same TFA I did?

The article is very FUDdy in nature. For example:

The next legal fight could be an attempt to force release of proprietary server code due to some part of the output of the server constituting a "work" generated by open source components on the server.

Well, clearly not. A reading of the GPL will generally show that the 'output' of a program isn't covered by the license unless, say, the output of that program reproduces part of itself or another GPLed work, for example.

Companies are also required by the new GPL to license to others all patents they own or control related to open source software, even those not related to code they add to open source software, and even if they did not own the patents at the time they distributed the open source software. This provision applies whether that distribution is part of a conscious marketing strategy or a casual sharing with others outside the organization.

Complete FUD. FUD, FUD, FUD. The GPL's patent provisions only pertain to patents (whether currently existing, or existing in the future) that directly affect the particular software package conveyed. IOW, if Microsoft distributes the latest version of Samba, then it cannot subsequently sue the Samba developers or any recipients of the Samba code for patent infringement related to Samba.

Re:GPL 3

[Mr2001]

If you want code open, then let it be open. If you want to control how or who uses your code, then don't make it free. At least be intellectually honest about it. The result of GPL3 is exactly the same as a EULA that restricts who and how software is run. Nope. You're confusing "use/run" with "distribute". The GPLv3, like the GPLv2 and most other open source licenses, restricts how you may distribute the code, not how you may use it.

The GPLv3 is no more or less "intellectually honest" than the GPLv2 was, and the "political ax" is no different. The agenda of the GPL was, and is, to give end users the freedom to modify the software, redistribute their changed versions, and put those changed versions to effective use. The changes in the GPLv3 are there because some companies figured out a way to sneak around that last one.

In this case, RMS is wrong. If RMS was truly about "Free" as in "freedom" he would have chosen BSD style license, which has even less restrictions. Maybe you should let him define what "free" means to him instead of substituting your own definition. Come on, you might as well be complaining that the BSD license takes away your "freedom" to distribute the software without a copyright notice or to use the authors' names in your advertising.

I even go further and will predict to you that GPL4 will be even more restrictive as people figure out ways around the restrictions of GPL3 that RMS doesn't like. Care to make a wager? If by "RMS doesn't like" you mean "subvert the intended goals of the GPL", then I agree with your prediction. Is that supposed to be a surprise?

Re:GPL 3

[Jherek Carnelian]

Don't like Tivo cause you can't "hack" it? Then don't buy one. Build your own instead, using the EXACT SAME GPL software Tivo uses. How come this isn't good enough for people like RMS is beyond me. I suspect this will fall on deaf ears, but WTH...

RMS's defining moment was when his printer wouldn't work. The printer driver had a bug and he could not fix it because the driver's source code was not available.

This was his printer (well technically his department's) and yet he was dead in the water - there was nothing he could do to fix it. Buying another printer was not an option - the money had been spent. Sure he could try to reverse engineer and printer driver from scratch and write it correctly. But with no guarantee of success that sure sounds like a poor way to do things.

So he decided that such a situation sucks, sucks big time, and so he decided to make a difference and change the way the world works so that other people would not find themselves in such a situation.

THAT's why "build your own tivo" is not good enough for people like RMS.