Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.'"
Rule of acquisition #17: A contract is a contract is a contract.
#DeleteFacebook
Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen wrote the GPL.
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
There is a lot of stolen equipment in pawn shops too. That doesn't mean it is fruitless to find stolen items and prosecute the thieves.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Bruce Perens .... Slashdot Newbie. /now get off my lawn.
"The only good windmill is a tilted windmill."
Please take your hate speech elsewhere.
Ethical BSD developers don't need GPL code, they write their own because they respect the fact that anyone who wrote GPL code is not okay with the idea of not getting back any improvements made to that code.
On the same note, ethical GPL developers don't relicense BSD code they happen to use, so that any fixes local only to the BSD source can be also shared with the BSD-only world. They both respect the idea that the original author who used BSD for the license doesn't mind if people use that code on closed-source products, and *also* stay true to the idea that one should always give back any improvements made to that code (by keeping it BSD so that the BSD people can use the improvement as well).
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'
My car is full of gpl code, and it's being used in contravention of the terms of the gpl. Of course the manufacturer doesn't care, but so many products are in the same boat.
I hope that real gpl enforcement starts soon. These companies need to either respect the gpl, or stop using code produced under it.
What people seem to forget when they claim that the gpl is "invalid" is that without it, they wouldn't be able to use the code AT ALL. So if it really is invalid, then it reverts to normal copyright laws which state that you can't copy without the creator's permission. People try to have it both ways, free code that they can do anything they want with. If that's what you want, gpl code doesn't qualify any more than expensive commercial code.
Nobody is forcing you to use the gpl. If you don't want to use it, don't.
But if a project is under the gpl, you don't get to simply ignore it's terms simply because you don't like them.
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.
Often you will see GPL projects that "allow" a corporate license.
The unwritten detail that you aren't seeing is that a GPL project that dual licences is almost exclusively developed by one company. It isn't a collaboration, because contributors provide their code under the GPL and that can't be included in the commercial product. This means that the GPL code is a gift by the company to the wider world with conditions which allow the company to continue to profit, they typically don't request significant contributions such as donations. The difference with a purely closed source company like Microsoft is that you, as the consumer, have a choice you otherwise wouldn't. For example you can use the GPL version for early development work and switch to the commercial license when you are sure you want to use the library and distribute a final product. The library development process closely mimics a standard closed source company.
Collaborative GPL products work very differently and are never dual licensed. The GPL provides a guarantee for each company contributing that every other company must also contribute. This allows direct competitors to cooperate on a product knowing that they aren't putting themselves at a disadvantage. These projects work very differently to the dual licensed ones, the development process is open to allow communication across multiple companies. They also take code contributions and sometimes financial contributions, often to maintain infrastructure.
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.
Companies I have worked for have supported projects vital to our work. The license influences libraries we use and the way way we use them. If you are adamantly opposed to the GPL and don't rely on their work then it would make perfect sense not to direct your money or time there.
Not supporting a collaborative GPL project because of a few non-collaborative GPL projects just shows off your ignorance.
The logic of the court case isn't specific to the GPL, any licence you choose to distribute source with, or even a straight binary distribution would probably involve the creation of an implicit contract.
You shouldn't be scared of contracts, they are just a way for lawyers to formalise agreements. Buying a coffee - a contract. Buying a bus ticket - a contract. Agreeing to terms and conditions you never bothered to read - a contract.
It's hard to look down on anyone who writes a bunch of code and releases it for free, whether it's under the GPL or the BSD license, it's still fairly generous.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
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.
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.
The contract doesn't obligate you to do anything (you've held up your end of the contract already, by producing something and distributing it) but it does obligate them to do something, so there is no drawback to entering into such a contract.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you possessed a third grade reading comprehension level you would know that I never stated or implied that registration was ever required. The AC facility is, however, quite misunderstood. The reason for AC originally was that in certain rare cases a person might want to post information that was "inside information", or say something controversial bit apropos, and the AC facility was in place so such people could do so without fear of reprisal. Nobody ever said "What we really need is a facility so people can troll and feel like it is acceptable behavior to berate our members like little children and offer nothing of value to the discussion." So no, Creimer, the AC facility is not in place for you to abuse it the way you do. Also, you don't know what the definition of troll is, which is ironic since you are one of the most idiotic and incompetent ones on Slashdot.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
You truly are a boring and incompetent troll. Thanks for making me smile though! :-)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
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.
It isn't "not getting back" it is "whoever gets it next needs to have the same freedoms, as does the person they give it to and whoever they give it to and whover they give it to .... for forever."
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
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
USING software was not considered an act that could infringe on copyright, when the GPL was originally created. It was argued that any copies made for the purposes of using the software were merely incidental and didn't count for copyright purposes -- they were merely mechanical acts. Even today, few argue that a core router at an ISP needs to obtain a copyright license to transfer bits of Mr Robot from Netflix's servers to the TV.
Back then, you could grab all of FSF's software from someone and use them to your heart's content, not giving a flying fuck about the GPL or any other license. The license was only a concern for whoever gave the software to you, it would only concern you if you tried to pass the software to others (and then only if you didn't simply follow the standard rules for second hand software).
Today the situation is clear as mud. Software licenses can say pretty much anything they want, and they apply to use, not just to copying. Except when they don't.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?