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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."
Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen wrote the GPL.
Not necessarily, if nobody has actually purchased the commercial license, it may not help you. Having active commercial licenses do however make it easy to prove damages. In other situations damages are going to be harder to prove, relying on prices of competing products, or the open-market cost of devlopment vs proportion of infringing use.
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."
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'
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.
I am currently working on getting my A+ certification - that's the goal for this year anyway. I don't really have the capacity to do much more - I tried college, didn't work out. I went to recruiting events - many, but all I could get hired for was a software tester for video games. We don't all have money to fall back on, and my family was shit. What is it you expect someone to do? I know I should have studied in school and made something of myself. When you're young and in a very bad family environment, you are not smart enough to push yourself yet or know what's out there. And then it's too late and you have to pay the bills. I think considering all things, I have not done bad - maybe not as good as you, but I've had it harder than you from othe very very early start. I'm not exactly contributing brilliant things here, but I've been on the site since '98, and there are some much, much dumber idiots here than me. I'm also going to guess I'm not the only one with the lard problem.
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.
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.
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?