Rjack wrote:
"The GPL is unenforceable under U.S. copyright law". So far, the GPL has never been interpreted under U.S. copyright
> law as applied through the application of state contract (common > law) by a U.S. court.
Ten thousand voluntary dismissals will not settle the question of the *legal enforceability* of the GPL -- only a court ruling on the specific GPL terms will settle that question.
That's actually a very reasonable position, if you're interested in the abstract legal question. However, most court cases are not brought for abstract legal edification but to accomplish a goal. In the cases brought by the SFLC, the goal is to obtain compliance with the GPL, and that goal has been accomplished each time. It has always been the position of the FSF that the GPL is so obviously enforceable that cases will probably never go all the way to a ruling, because defendants have the choice of rejecting the GPL and then having no distribution rights or accepting the GPL and then needing to explain why they don't honor it, losing both ways. We do have the MySQL case <http://pacer.mad.uscourts.gov/dc/opinions/saris/pdf/progress%20software.pdf>, which, while not a specific ruling that the GPL is enforceable, does show that the judge read the GPL, understood its terms, and showed no indication that she thought it was illegal. We also have the CAFC decision <http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf> saying "Copyright holders who engage in open source licensing have the right to control the modification and distribution of copyrighted material." The legalisms you quote are at best general principles which you hope will apply to the GPL in the way you want, but as you can see from these two cases, judges appear to be inclined to take these licenses at face value, treating them as if they mean what they say and as if they are enforceable. Your abstractions aren't going to override the perception that an author has the right to control how his work is used, regardless of the novelty of open source licensing. Law isn't physics. _______________________________________________ gnu-misc-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss
