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Bruce Perens Explains That 'GPL Is A Contract' Court Case (perens.com)
Bruce Perens co-founded the Open Source Initiative with Eric Raymond -- and he's also Slashdot reader #3,872. Bruce Perens writes:
There's been a lot of confusion about the recent Artifex v. Hancomcase, in which the court found that the GPL was an enforceable contract. I'm going to try to explain the whole thing in clear terms for the legal layman.
Two key quotes:
Two key quotes:
- "What has changed now is that for the purposes of the court, the GPL is both a license, which can be enforced through a claim of copyright infringement, and a contract, which can be enforced through a claim of breach of contract. You can allege both in your court claim in a single case, and fall back on one if you can't prove the other. Thus, the potential to enforce the GPL in court is somewhat stronger than before this finding, and you have a case to cite rather than spending time in court arguing whether the GPL is a contract or not..."
- "Another interesting point in the case is that the court found Artifex's claim of damages to be admissible because of their use of dual-licensing. An economic structure for remuneration of the developer by users who did not wish to comply with the GPL terms, and thus acquired a commercial license, was clearly present."
Low UID prestige is quite legitimate. It means we have been around since the beginning, when there was nobody on here but true nerds who almost all knew their stuff. While it is true that a high UID does not prove ignorance and incompetence there is an almost zero chance that a low UID holder will be anything but a person with a lot of experience in the field, a solid understanding of Linux or at least lots of experience with it, and almost zero chance that they are a Microsoft weanie. In other words, we were here when Slashdot was a tech site, and more specifically a linux and OSS tech site.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
The article by Bruce Perens, like all pro-GPL writing, is nothing but Orwellian double-speak, constantly talking about freedom but at the same time insisting that freedom means "you must do exactly as I say".
That's exactly how freedom works. In free societies, freedom means you cannot murder, you cannot steal, you cannot disparage, you cannot do a lot of actions, deemed bad. You should know that, Hobbes already talked about it a few centuries ago.