At 02:37 30/10/00 -0800, you wrote:
>Usual disclaimer: I AM NOT A LAWYER.
>
>I've been following this rather painful discussion and have a few questions:
>
>1.) The question of whether or not the virality of the GPL comes into play
>hinges on the definition of "platform". Is this correct?
basically - it really hinges on the definition of what is OS/compiler with
respect to java (see end of clause 3) but platform is an approximation to
it ;)
>2.) If 1.) is correct then who gets to decide what constitutes a platform?
the courts
>This seems particularly important because the GPL, itself, does not define
it.
>I mean the GNU lawyers can come up with whatever definition they like, but if
>they come after me for violating the GPL can't I contest their definition?
you can but you are unlikely to win. Remember that they have literally
thousands and thousands of man hours developing the license to their own
needs and many of the hours are done by lawyer folk
>A
>license holder can't come in and arbitrarily change terms or definitions of
>terms to bolster their claim, can they?
what do you mean ?
> Since the GPL has never been
>challenged it all seems very hypothetical to claim that the GNU lawyers have
>the only valid definition of what constitutes a Java platform.
There is a reason GPL has never been challenged (in court). It has been
challenged outside of court and even during preliminary court proceedings
and many big buisnesses with a lot of cash have gone against it but not one
time has GNU come out as wrong and not once have the offenders been game
enough to take the issue to court.
>It doesn't even
>seem to me that Sun has the right to unilaterally decide what constitutes a
>Java plaform as it pertains to the GPL. While it may be true that the courts
>can come up with some rather nonintuitive decisions, the courts are not
>completely divorced from all common sense considerations. In fact, they
apply
>common sense and consider practical implications to their decisions all of
the
>time. So, a common sense legal definition of platform does seem possible.
Right - but I bet for all intents and purposes their common sense
definition will equal the GNUs.
>3.) Because of all of the questions in 2.) the GPL seems very murky and
>ill defined in many ways. For that reason alone, it may be wise to choose
>another license, regardless of who is right on the law.
The GPL is very very clearly defined ;) - it is just that very few people
understand it.
>4.) Is the specific conflict between Tomcat and jBoss based on the the
BSD vs
>the GPL, or is it more generally just an issue of different licenses being
>mixed in one integrated package? Similarly, are there groups of licenses
that
>are generally compatible? For example, are the MPL and BSD generally
>compatible, while the BSD and GPL are not? In other words, is it the GPL vs
>all other licenses, or just specific ones? Would the BSD license be
compatible
>with the Artistic License (I ask because there seems to be some
requirement for
>redistributing changes to source code in section 3 of the AL, though it does
>seem to allow alternatives to doing so)?
APL is compatable with artistic, bsd and mozilla derivatives I believe thou
IANAL. GPL is not compatable with any other license except public domain
that I am aware of (and public domain is not really a license as such).
Cheers,
Pete
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