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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."
and if you get your legal advice from a programmer in bumfuck America you are an idiot, much like OP, welcome to the internet jerkwad.
If I'm reading the summary correctly, we would be wise to officially offer dual licensing, even if we set the price so high that nobody would actually license the code under those terms?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Cuz the circuit courts and/or SCOTUS are going to rip that finding to shreds.
fat nerdy fuckos just slurping the oil from they unwanted hair and screaming "this is the year of Linux on the desktop"
no u fat bastards, it is not
Rule of acquisition #17: A contract is a contract is a contract.
#DeleteFacebook
Yes, Bruce, we know you have a low UID. You are in fact part of the reason there is "low UID prestige" on the site.
Back in the day, there were trolls using ascii hacking to make fake Bruce Perens accounts. In those days, UID wasn't posted next to names (like a badge on a cub scout uniform, i.m.o.)
Because Bruce was getting "picked on" the site was changes so UID is emblazoned on everything.
Just one of the early instances where the quality of Slashdot was reduced.
...ask me any questions you want.
My guess is that there is a HUGE amount of GPL code compiled into numerous closed-source applications being sold or otherwise distributed in ways that violate the GPL. Good luck finding it all...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Looking at the initial comments, I would think you might want to weigh in on some points/questions coming up here.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
How do you violate a contract you never agreed to? Simple plagiarism shouldn't qualify as a violation of contract as no contract was agreed upon.
Bruce Perens .... Slashdot Newbie. /now get off my lawn.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
Copyrighted works require permission to copy them... the GPL is simply a written permission to copy the work it covers to anyone that will agree to the terms. Nothing more, and nothing less. If you agree to the terms, implicitly, by not acting in contravention to those terms, then you have permission to copy the work, but if you act in contravention of the terms then the default status of copyrighted work applies and no such permission is granted by the GPL.
Full stop.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Open source is one of the greatest things to have happened in modern civilization. But people who push the GPL is are a bunch of douche-bag assholes. Stallman and his ilk don't do GPL so that their code can be free. But so they can have power over other coders. Often you will see GPL projects that "allow" a corporate license.
It is a nasty game they play. A GPL library will be "Standard" more and more until there really is no alternative. How is this any better than places like Microsoft?
Then the assholes will say, "Well if you don't like it then make your own library." The key here is that most of the people who probably contributed to the project didn't want it GPL but it was the only project in town.
I regularly have my company donate to many open source projects. These donations are pretty good (1-5k each) but we all fully agree that never in a million years would we donate to a GPL project or any over arching project ever.
Lawyers call an agreement a contract.
The court has just affirmed what you said, Hancom publicly stated that they had agreed to the GPL. Thus there is a contract in place.
The contract has terms, defined by the GPL that Hancom agreed to. These terms were not complied with. Now we have a breach of contract.
Once a breach of contract has been established the case becomes much clearer, lots of existing case law which covers how it should be dealt with.
> ...the GPL is simply a written permission to copy...
Yeah, but what are "written permissions documents" called? It depends on the kind of document, but there's a clue in TFS!
From the Fine Summary:
> 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.
Engage your brain when you find yourself getting frustrated and you might find that your misunderstanding is the source of your frustration!
Since I do not wish to have a contract with random people on the Internet that download my software, then I should probably stop releasing my software as GPL at this point.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Just because the work is not licensed like you want does not mean you get to ignore the license it has. And the courts in the USA have clearly stated time and time again in court cases that merely HAVING the copyrighted work in your possession is "monetarily valuable".
If I don'l like the Steam agreement, does that mean I can ignore the Steam game and just hack the shit out of it to get it to run and not pay anyone anything? No? Then it doesn't matter if I don't like the GPL, I still can't just use it.
> The court has just affirmed what you said, Hancom publicly stated that they had agreed to the GPL. Thus there is a contract in place.
> The contract has terms, defined by the GPL that Hancom agreed to.
This is the key to it all. The GPL is a license until parties profess mutual assent. Otherwise, everyone on the planet would be part of the GPL contract, even though they never agreed to it. The license of the GPL becomes the terms of a contract when mutual assent is agreed.
The author of the article ignores this and tries to conflate the GPL as being dual-natured, when in fact the court is very clear the parties here both agreed to the GPL terms. This case does not represent standard GPL use where a party uses the source code but never agreed to the GPL. Those cases are clearly copyright infringement and not contract, despite what the pro-GPL people say.
> the GPL is both a license, which can be enforced through a claim of copyright infringement, and a contract,
The article is wrong. The court did not say it is both - it said that the GPL becomes a contract when both parties profess agreement to it. In this case, both parties did agree they published under GPL terms. This case is NOT a general representation of the GPL license, it is a specific fact scenario. The GPL is not both - the implied contract is formed from the terms when the parties agree. The new "object" is a contract derived from the GPL. The GPL is fundamentally a copyright license when it stands on its own. The Artifex court does not disgree with that.
Is a software licence a contract? This question is easy to answer, because YOU can answer it and you cannot do the wrong thing.
Two options.
1) You decide it is. You use the software and follow the terms of the licence
2) You decide it is not. Then you're not allowed to use the software, as its copyright protected and you have absolutely no permission to use it, while there is no binding contract which allows you to use it. So you don't use it.
You cannot do the wrong thing.
Not that simple. A contract requires an exchange of value. Gifts are legally possible, but are not contracts. Is the conditional (on GPL terms) offer to waive copyright restrictions a gift? The judge has noted that the GPL appears to put obligations on the receiver that benefit the distributor, which is the step that would make it a contract.
Now you say you are sure they do.
One of you creimers is lying their weaselly little arse off.
The GPL is a license until parties profess mutual assent.
Which you do by redistributing the IP in question, per the terms of the license.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The GPL puts no obligations on the receiver that aren't already there because of copyright. If you receive a copyrighted work, the only obligation that is placed upon you by receiving it is that you need to get the copyright holder's permission in order to copy it (typically written permission).
The GPL only grants such written permission to copy the work that it covers to certain people, indentifying the people that it is granting permission to copy the work as anyone who implicitly agrees to its terms by not doing anything which contradicts those terms. It does not require an arbitrary recipient to follow those terms *AT ALL*, as a contract would. If the recipient doesn't follow the terms, the GPL doesn't give them any permission to copy the work, and if they do abide by them, then it does. Simple. If someone distributes the work and does something that contradicts the terms of the GPL, then they aren't breaking any contract, because they never agreed to such a contract in the first place, the person is committing copyright infringement by copying a work that they have not been granted permission to copy. The only thing resembling a "contract" when it comes to the GPL is the "contract" that copyright law already covers, which is the agreement that you would not copy the work without permission.
Done.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I'm not the AC, but I have some commentary on the issue.
My position is that the GPL is inherently toxic to the economy, specifically to the portion of the economy that consists of opportunity to earn from creating software. That very economy is important to those of us who can program at a level where we can create commercial products. My tiny sector of said economy shall not be poisoned thus.
And before someone says "yes, but you can charge for support", the way I see it, the optimum path is to write software that doesn't need support. Why?
First, because that's best for the consumer: good docs, good performance, high reliability, minimum bugs, secure. I prefer to charge for the product, fix it for free if it breaks (after all, I sold it with the idea that it did X under conditions Y...Z; I maintain that's an obligation I must address if I possibly can), and charge for actual new features V...W. Likewise, if I write proper documentation (which I also maintain is my obligation), I don't need to be telling people how to do X, because I already told them how to do X. Not that I don't end up pointing people to the docs on how to do X, but that's not a failing of mine I have to be concerned about having foisted off on the consumer.
Second, because it's very good for me. If my users come to think of my products as reliable, well documented, fixed for free quickly if broken, and overall functional as advertised, they're a lot more likely to come back to me than if I continually charge them for doing the above things poorly. I'm not guessing here: This has worked extremely well for me.
What isn't good for the consumer is when Joe(anne) programmer looks at an idea, runs into the GPL, and goes, "no, not going to give my ideas to my competition" and wanders off elsewhere.
You contradict yourself. The opportunity to get a return is absolutely there. If Joe(anne) builds a commercial product, I have the opportunity to purchase that result; to encourage and benefit the programmer(s) who built the product in direct return for the benefit they provide me, and perhaps to benefit yet again further down the road as they consider the opportunity to earn more. Likewise, if it's me doing the programming, I'm one heck of a lot more likely to consider it if it means my family and I get to eat because I created something useful to someone than I am if my earnings are now compromised by having handed my work to the competition.
Because it represents an opportunity to earn; because it represents an incentive for the earner to make something for me, right along with a reason for them to do it. And I can use their work. Commercial products are usable. Writing code isn't the only use of code. Using the programs the code is incorporated in is a significant benefit. I can't be writing every program I use. Commercial products have been a huge boon to my career and my family.
Now, none of this means that I object to someone else's decision to license their stuff under the GPL; that's their code and they are absolutely free to license it any way they see fit. What it does mean, though, is that spotting a GPL license means I'm going to walk away from whatever it is. It won't benefit me in my commercial applications unless I give away my own inventions, and it has the potential to harm me by giving my work to my competition, so: not having any.
Personally, when I make code public (which I've done a bit of), I make it public, as in, you want to use it, copy it, learn from it, incorporate it in your commercial product, you just go right ahead, and I am
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If the terms were not complied with, then they weren't agreed to, regardless of any claiim to the contrary, since the GPL grants permission to copy only to people that do not act in contravention of its terms.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
If you must write a flimsy rationalization of your prejudices, be concise.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
This post deserves more visibility.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If you want to complain no one has answered your take on things, you should bring reading skills and capacities above the third grade level (and I may be being unkind to many third graders there) in case someone actually, you know, answers you.
It is the height of rudeness to press for a response, and then fail to bother to read it. I'm absolutely unwounded – this is a profoundly obvious case of consider the source – but I certainly know better to continue engagement with demonstrated social cripples.
That's /thread. Anything further is just aimless scratching of itches.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.