[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [...] > Am I right? Ever heard of Ray Nimmer?
http://www.ipinfoblog.com/archives/Open%20Source%20Legal%20Issues.pdf LEGAL ISSUES IN OPEN SOURCE AND FREE SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION1 RAYMOND T. NIMMER 1 This materials have been adapted from Chapter 11 in Raymond T. Nimmer, The Law of Computer Technology (1997, 2005 Supp.). ----- C. Viral impact: unrestricted vs. copyleft software The idea of copyleft license provisions is a characteristic part of at least a segment of the free software and open source software (FSOS) community.89 Indeed, it is common in FSOS to view restrictive copyleft provisions as the hallmark of truly free software, as the community defines that term. From the perspective of nonbelievers, however, copyleft is the most controversial feature of free software and open source software because it affects the users rights with respect to the FSOS software and may impact the users control of software written entirely by it when used in conjunction with the FSOS software. In a stunning example of double-speak, the Preamble to the GPL describes the reason for such provisions in the GPL in terms of protecting the licensees rights: To protect your rights, ----- Nimmer continued... ----- While proponents refer to such restrictions as creating free software, protecting rights, persons affected or potentially affected by the terms tend to refer to the risk of viral license terms that reach out to infect their own, separately developed software and of improper market ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ leverage and misuse of copyright to control the works of other people. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ----- He also notes that ----- Beyond contract interpretation issues, the viral terms of licenses present legal issues about enforceability. One basis for challenge lies in the concept of misuse.98 This theory precludes enforcement of intellectual property rights that have been misused by the rights owner, including at least in some cases by attempting to leverage the rights into control of products or work that falls outside the scope of the licensors property interest. Clearly, the viral terms in an FSOS license do this, but whether courts would hold that they are justifiable by the nature of the context and the purpose behind the license terms remains to be seen. ----- Interestingly enough, when Wallace pointed out the problem of "automatic" aggregation of rights to INDEPENDENT works (works under independent copyright) under the GPL (by virtue of viral infection) in court of law, the FSF (defense attorneys from a multi million $ law firm hired by the FSF) quickly backtracked: ------ In fact, the GPL itself rejects any automatic aggregation of software copyrights under the GPL simply because one program licensed under the GPL is distributed together with another program that is not licensed under the GPL: "In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License." ------ Substituting the definitions of "Program" and "work based on the Program" from Section 0, the quoted passage of the GPL reads as: "In addition, mere aggregation of another work not a derivative work under copyright law (of work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License) with work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License or a derivative work under copyright law (of work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License." regards, alexander. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
