Hi all, on last wednesday October 24, from 18:00 UTC till about 19:30 UTC, a public Q&A IRC meeting was held by the FSF Compliance Lab. For further details, please see the announcement: http://gplv3.fsf.org/pipermail/info-gplv3/2007-October/000025.html
I attended the meeting and asked two questions.
Brett Smith (FSF's Licensing Compliance Engineer) answered them (as well
as all the other questions that could be answered in time).
It was said that the Q&A IRC channel was being logged and that the log
could be published on the web, sooner or later. However, the log is not
yet online, AFAICT.
The following is a partial log of the IRC meeting, covering my two
questions and corresponding answers by Brett "bcs" Smith.
I am sending this to debian-legal (assuming that some people may be
interested), after having received explicit permission to do so.
Please remember that IANAL, TINLA, IANADD, TINASOTODP (just in case
these disclaimers could be considered useful for this message as
well...).
-----------------------------
<bcs> frx asked: I have a question about patent protection: Section 11 of GPLv3
lists "causing the Corresponding Source to be available" as a form
of protection against patent infringement lawsuits. I cannot
understand how it could protect anyone. This question is better
detailed in
http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/summarydecision.html?filename=%3C%%%20%20%%3E&id=3224
<bcs> So, allowing patent licensees to make the source available to the
public, as section 11 does, causes a couple of things to happen.
<bcs> First, it means that the source will get out there. If the original
patent licensee didn't make source available like this, it's
possible that *their* recipients may be afraid to distribute the
software further.
<bcs> So with this option, at least we now effectively have the source in the
hands of every free software coder in the world.
<bcs> This creates a second happy side effect: it would be possible for such
developers to argue in court that they at least have an implicit
patent license, since they received the software *directly* from the
patent licensee.
<bcs> It may not be a bulletproof argument, but it's a lot easier to make when
you're only one step removed from the patent holder instead of four
or five steps away.
<bcs> Also, it may enable coders to merely work around the patent.
<bcs> For example, development could continue in a country where the patent,
or an equivalent, wasn't in force.
<bcs> Or developers could try to find some other way of doing the same task
that wasn't patented. They would still benefit from the original
code.
<bcs> For example, if the program was a video player, and the video codec was
patented, developers could still use the entire UI and other
subsystems, and simply hack it to play Ogg Theora instead.
<bcs> So, this option may not provide absolute protection from patents for
every individual developer, but that's okay, because that's not the
goal. The goal is to make sure the software stays free.
<bcs> And we think that as long as we can get the code into the hands of
developers worldwide, that'll happen.
-----------------------------
<bcs> frx asked: I have another question about Section 11: why discriminatory
patents agreements are only fought if they have been made after 28
March 2007? Why this date? What's special about it? See also
http://gplv3.fsf.org/comments/rt/summarydecision.html?filename=%3C%%20%20%3E&id=3227
<bcs> Section 11 deals with discriminatory patent deals from two angles.
<bcs> First, it attacks these deals from the Microsoft side.
<bcs> It says that if you're the one providing the "protection," then you have
to extend that protection to all recipients of the program, not just
the select few who are paying your royalties.
<bcs> That section has no date limit.
<bcs> It applies to all discriminatory patent deals, and that's why Novell
recently announced that Microsoft would, in fact, extend such
protect to recipients of GPLv3 programs included in their GNU/Linux
distributions.
<bcs> This is good because it takes the deals that were made before we started
addressing this issue in GPLv3 drafts, and turns them into a
community resource.
<bcs> Just think: people who get Samba directly or indirectly from Novell are
going to have assurances from Microsoft that they won't be sued for
patent infringement.
<bcs> So that's the first angle of attack.
<bcs> Second, we address this from the distributor's side.
<bcs> While it is nice to turn these deals into benefits for the community, it
shouldn't become a pattern. We should not be paying Microsoft to
use free software. It won't be free if we have to.
<bcs> So, we create a disincentive for distributors to make deals like that:
we tell them that if they do, they can't distribute software
released under GPLv3.
<bcs> That's the part that has the date cut-off. If you made the deal before
28 March 2007, you can still distribute GPLv3 software. Otherwise,
you can't.
<bcs> 28 March 2007 is the date that we published the third discussion draft
of GPLv3, and it was the first draft to have this language in it.
<bcs> So, basically, the third discussion draft itself was a sort of warning:
these sorts of deals are not going to be okay. If you were thinking
about entering one, think again.
<bcs> I suppose we could've let this restriction apply retroactively to deals
made at any point, but we didn't see much point in that. By letting
them distribute, we can make sure that the patent assurances get
spread around.
-----------------------------
--
http://frx.netsons.org/doc/nanodocs/testing_workstation_install.html
Need to read a Debian testing installation walk-through?
..................................................... Francesco Poli .
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