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The GPLv2 Goes To Court
Jason Baker writes Despite its importance, the GPLv2 has been the subject of very few court decisions, and virtually all of the most important terms of the GPLv2 have not been interpreted by courts. This lack of court decisions is about to change due to the five interrelated cases arising from a dispute between Versata Software, Inc. and Ameriprise Financial, Inc.. These cases are dealing with four important terms in the GPLv2: 1) What are the remedies for breach of the terms of the GPLv2? 2) What is a "distribution" under the GPLv2 that triggers the obligations under the GPLv2? 3) Does the GPLv2 include a patent license? 4) What type of integration between proprietary code and GPLv2 licensed code will result in creating a "derivative work" and subject such proprietary code to the terms of the GPLv2?
RMS only commissioned the license. He did not create it. The lawyer that actually drafted the license would likely be a much better "witness" assuming that such things would even be considered in this case.
Amicus briefs are likely the only means of being seen or heard in a case like this.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Well, sort of. Clause 7 could be interpreted as a patent license, in that if you knowingly distribute code that violates your patents then you are violating the license if you don't also include a patent grant. In v3 it's more explicit precisely because it was ambiguous in v2. It's up to the court to decide whether this ambiguous license is a license.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
If there's fine print, then there's no need for the opinion of the creators. Indeed there's no need for their opinion either way, because if it's not in the license already, in written words, no one is subject to it.
That is NOT why she folded up groklaw. See more at http://www.groklaw.net/article...
Groklaw folded mainly due to e-mail privacy concerns. PJ wanting more of her personal time back was a factor, as she'd tried to back away from the site a few times already. But it wasn't the main stated reason for the shutdown. I could understand that some people feel e-mail privacy was a silly reason to fold the site, even if I don't agree myself.
Contrary to the FUD you may read on the internet, the GPL does not need to be "tested in court" and will not be by these cases. You can't challenge a license you're not a party to; you can't sue to harm yourself; if the Court throws out the contract, it cannot write a new one. So you can't be using GPL code and then challenge the license. If you proved the license to be fatally deficient, you'd lose your right to use the code; you'd be harmed by your own court action, and you'd be the only loser. So the Court wouldn't even let you argue that; it is not a valid basis for a case.
You can fight over the smaller details of a license and what it means, but you can't actually attack the license here. Because it is free, you can't claim to have been misled, or been a victim of an unfair business practice. So you can only argue the edge cases and how they effect you; you can't both have standing, and also challenge the validity of the license.
It is mostly just misrepresenting the cases that conflates them with having to do with the GPL. These are cases that revolve around business practices and contracts between companies, where there are issues related to their partnerships and business practices related to each other. It has nothing to do with the GPL itself, except in weighing the reasonable expectations of the different parties. If the rulings go one way or the other, it won't affect the GPL or companies using the GPL. It will only affect companies that engage in whatever practices are found to be unfair or harmful.
In the cases here, there are three companies involved; company A licensed software from company B under proprietary terms. That license is actually the main one involved in the 5 cases. Company A was allowed to use 3rd party contractors to edit the code, subject to terms. Company C (the 3d party contractor) is accused by Company B of having use Company B's code in a competing project. Company B also accuses Company A of not terminating their contract with Company C when they learned they were in violation of the agreement. Company A accuses Company B of having used GPL code in the code they licensed, and therefore that they didn't have the right to license it, and that the entire codebase is a derivative work of that GPL code.
So the GPL is "involved" in the sense that the Court has to decide if this code is licensed rightfully under the proprietary license, and/or the GPL. Depending on the answer to that question, some number of these companies may be found to have been naughty, and be made to pay. But the GPL is not being questioned here; and it won't ever be in the sense that people always meant by "testing it in court."