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?

Comments

If only PJ was still running groklaw!

[Chirs]

This would have been the perfect story to get covered there....

Re:If only PJ was still running groklaw!

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

Actually she tried to turn it over to someone else for a while. But the other person did not have her clarity in explaning the court document that PJ had and it was mostly her anyway.

Yes it was taking alot of her time and she did it on her spare time. So I understand why she did not had time to continue to update it.

There is a new site trying to do what PJ did - but missing her brilliance it's a very small site which not many visit:

http://grokthelaw.freeforums.net/ but anyone who wants to, is welcome to help.

Re:Why not ask the authors of the GPL Ver.2?

[Richard_at_work]

No, the creators will tell you what it was intended to do, the court will tell you what it actually does. Potentially huge difference there.

Re:Why not ask the authors of the GPL Ver.2?

[gstoddart]

It upsets me that this question will be answered by those who [probably] know nothing about software and code. Why won't they ask those who created this GPL? Wouldn't they surely know better?

Because, the GPL is essentially a contract written in the framework of contract law, which says "you have a copyright exemption under the following circumstances".

There's been tons of confusion about what it actually means, and if it legally means what people think it means.

Until a court actually rules on this, everything else is an opinion based on someone's interpretation.

But, from there, if it stands and the court says "this is the impact", then we'll know and there will be legal precedent.

It's within the realm of the possible the court could invalidate the whole damned thing. And the court could also provide an interpretation which narrows the scope of it. The court could also expand it.

So, it may upset you, but the foundation of the legal system is more or less until a judge rules on it, and until there is a legal precedent ... you don't really know if it holds water or not.

Those who created the GPL may not know as much as they think about writing a software license. Or, they knew an awful lot and the court will agree.

At the very least, this should remove some of the ambiguity and confusion.

Re:Why not ask the authors of the GPL Ver.2?

[Kjella]

Well, that part is actually not up to the GPL to define it's a key part of copyright law, if it's not derivative it's not covered by copyright so the GPL wouldn't apply.

Re:Hope they keep Stallman off the stand...

[gnasher719]

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.

Even so, what the lawyers who created the license intended doesn't matter. Or what he was told that the license should achieve, doesn't matter either. The text of the license matters.

Re:Does GPLv2 Grant a Patent license

[Qzukk]

it would make absolute sense

Now back up a second there and consider proprietary software. Imagine if you bought Microsoft Office for your company and a year later Microsoft comes along and starts threatening you with patent infringement lawsuits over your use of their patents. I can't imagine that a court would stand for that at all without at least a fine print "requires additional patent license" and even then there's fitness requirements that the court would have at least a little discussion on.

Why would it be different for something given to you for free with explicit permission to use and give away? If the patent holder wants to provide a reference implementation to licensors, they can do so with a license tied to their patent, but it should not be the GPL.