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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?
Versata is essentially a "vulture" company that buys software companies that are down to life-support levels to extract the last bits of value (continuing support contracts, etc.). If you ever see them knocking on your door, find another job ASAP because your company (and your job) is a gonner. Interestingly, one thing that companies do as part of the due diligence when acquiring other companies is determine if there is any open source in the products in order to identify potential liabilities. Btw, companies looking for a buyout often go through a phase to clear out potential open source infringements, so that's a sign if it wasn't clearly spelt out..
I'm guessing that in this case Infosys, a contractor for Ameriprise, probably got paid to develop some software and made it in the form of a library to be used in other contracts. Having outsourced to India before, I was pretty sure that was going on (that and liberal use of open source). After all, rapid development doesn't happen magically.
I wonder if it is possible to create a communication language that has the reproducibility and stability of a programming language. There is hardly even any point in writing out legal rights or documents when everytime it is read it can be interpreted differently. It seems that the law has taken the stance that, since reinterpreting it every time is a hassle and inconsistent, we will just use the interpretation of whoever read it first. But since we have no accurate way of storing legal ideas, how do you interpret the interpretation accurately?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
No there's a third remedy. Negotiate with the copyright holder for more suitable terms of license. So to summarize, there are three remedies available:
1. Cease distributing the offending code (replace it, or withdraw the software from distribution entirely)
2. Re-license the derivative work under compatible terms (essentially release the entire work as GPLv2)
3. Buy a suitable license for the copyrighted code under terms compatible with the needs of the derivative work.
Note that #3 is impossible for some projects, as all copyright holders must agree. For some large projects this is very difficult, especially when some contributors can no longer be found. The Linux Kernel is one example.
For one-man shows, this is why I always recommend the GPL for released code. This allows you the option to sell commercial licenses should your code prove popular. And you still have the option to add additional open source licenses as others request. Releasing code under a permissive license, such as the BSD or even MIT, shuts the door on some of these options. You can always relicense your own code, but you can't recall code you've previously released under another license.
So asking the creators of the GPL in this instance will get you nowhere because their opinion on the matter lacks any weight, its what the actual wording says which determines what you are beholden to.
Most prose can be interpreted in multiple ways and not every interpretation occurs to every human at every time. Courts are well aware of this, which is why they will only ever offer an Opinion about what things mean - never claiming to offer the Truth. Even SCOTUS only offers opinions.
Now, those courts will also issue orders to men with a violent streak to enforce their opinions, so effectively they are Law. But never Truth, which is why subsequent cases can overturn previous ones. This also means that Law is never Truth, only the prevailing view of the status quo of a given time.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Now all that said, from all I've heard the authors of the GPL were quite competent in what they were doing, so it is quite likely that the GPL says what they meant.
I think the most important thing is about remedies, and there is quite strong precedence. It seems that if you use open-sourced software and don't do what you are supposed to do according to the license, you are a copyright infringer, and not someone in breach of contract. So the damages are those of a copyright infringer (up to $150,000 per work, or the proven damage), and not those of a person in breach of contract.
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.
Bullshit. The entire point of having a legal system based on written law is so that people know what the law is without having to just try things and then see if the executive arrests them. There are places in the law that are rough and where you really don't know what a judge will do -- "new areas of the law" -- but, in most cases, you do know what a judge will do, because of statute and precedent in similar cases. This certainty is what gives the law its value.
The GPL is a fairly simple document. It's pretty clear what it means, so we really don't need a judge to tell us. This court case might clear up a few corner cases about the consequences of infringement (forced relicensing or simple injunction + damages), but it is effectively impossible the entire document will be held null and void. There's enough precedent that it is possible to conditionally license a copyrighted work that the GPL's general validity is not in doubt.
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.